VOTERS in Bury North have six days left to decide where their crosses will go come the General Election.

If you haven't made up your mind yet, the six candidates in Bury North and South are sure to be pulling out all the stops to woo voters before next Thursday's (June 7) General Election.

The two seats are traditionally viewed as marginal, and a key indicator of how the rest of the country will vote.

The runners and riders in Bury North, which comprises Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington, are as follows.

Labour's David Chaytor (51) is Bury born and bred, and won the seat in 1997 from Tory MP Alistair Burt. A former departmental head at Manchester College of Arts and Technology, he lives with his wife Sheena in Todmorden, and they have three grown-up children.

The Conservative challenger is John Walsh (49), a long-serving Bolton councillor and self-employed management consultant. He was awarded the OBE in 1994 for public and political service, and lives with his wife Christine in Heaton, Bolton.

Bryn Hackley (30) is the Liberal Democrat hopeful. He sits on the Radcliffe area board as a representative of the Environmental Forum. He is a care worker for a private elderly persons home in Bolton, and lives with his partner and their child in Higher Dean Street, Radcliffe.

The nation's political "big guns" were in Bury once more, and they don't come much bigger than these two.

Tory leader William Hague and deputy prime minister John Prescott were the latest to fire an election salvo in support of their local candidates.

Mr Hague breezed into town last Friday (May 25) on his battle bus, and was confident of a true blue revival.

Just 24 hours earlier, Labour's deputy leader John Prescott steered his "Prescott Express" into Bury. Both men were given a boisterous but good-humoured reception by rival hordes of flag-waving supporters and detractors.

The key Bury seats have previously attracted visits from high profile politicians led by Tony Blair.

And the Tories were no slouches either: barely had the election been called when shadow cabinet ministers Ann Widdecombe and Francis Maude were in town, joined later by Iain Duncan Smith.

Meanwhile, two important ingredients were missing when the Mayor of Bury held a pre-election buffet and these were the Tory candidates!

William Hague's visit, and late notification of the event, were to blame for their absence at last Friday's traditional get-together for all the candidates.

The Mayor, Councillor Paul Nesbit, did get to greet the Labour candidates for Bury North and South, David Chaytor and Ivan Lewis, and the Liberal Democrat contestants Bryn Hackley and Tim Pickstone.

John Walsh, the Tory candidate for Bury North, said that William Hague's visit last Friday had long been in his diary, while he had received his invitation to the mayor's parlour only the day before the event.

"I regret that I missed it, but I cannot be in two places at once," he said. "I have great support for the office of the mayor and civic protocols, but it was not possible to attend on that occasion. My apologies were telephoned through by my agent."

His Bury South colleague Nicola Le Page said she had not received her invitation until Saturday, the day after the event. She said it was certainly not a deliberate snub, and she would be sending her apologies.

The mayor said he did not regard the Tories' non-attendance as a personal snub.

He explained that the principal point of the meeting was to allow the council solicitor and the deputy returning officer to outline the rules of electoral conduct to the candidates, their agents and party workers.

On Tuesday (May 29), it was lights, camera, action! Bury was put on the regional TV map during a special live broadcast .

Sir Paddy Ashdown, former Liberal Democrat leader, was perhaps the most well-known guest when the town's Met arts centre hosted the BBC's Close Up North Election Special Debate.

Local people fired questions at him and the two other guests, Liverpool Labour candidate Jane Kennedy and Ribble Valley Tory contestant Nigel Evans, during the debate hosted by Stuart Flinders.

The subjects ranged from racism to the Euro, disabled access to pensioners' benefits, and from the teaching profession to the night's crucial question which was do the candidates enjoy Bury's famous black pudding?

Labour's David Chaytor was putting his best foot forward as June 7 nears or was he going for the older vote?

Still, Mr Chaytor seemed to enjoy this part of the campaign when he visited Mosses House sheltered housing scheme.

It wasn't long before he was coralled into a spot of line-dancing at the scheme's open day in Frank Street, Bury.

Voters have a whole 15 hours in which to determine the future of the country next Thursday.

The polling stations are open from 7am to 10pm, although an unprecedented number of people will be making their mark with a postal vote.

Bury's elections office has been swamped with more than 18,000 applications, more than four times the usual number for a General Election.

Everyone should have received their polling card by Sunday (June 3). It will help staff if you take this with you when you vote, although this is not essential.

Neither is it essential to give your polling card number to anyone outside the polling station. These are people working for political parties, not official tellers or town hall staff.