IT may be good to talk...but self-confessed chatterbox Kenneth Owens reckons his big mouth has earned him a life ban from a church social club.

Mr Owens claims he was banned from the Our Lady of Lourdes club on Plodder Lane, Farnworth for talking too much.

The 61-year-old of Barncroft Road, Farnworth says he was warned several times for button-holing customers and bending their ear - usually about his national service days in the RAF.

But he was recently told he was banned for life when he went to meet his girlfriend during one of the regular line dancing nights at the Catholic club.

The club strongly deny he was banned for talking but disabled Mr Owens said: "They kept telling me to stop mithering people.

"I cannot help talking all the time, the doctor says it's because of my nerves.

"It does no harm. My girlfriend says she thought I was as daft as a brush when she first met me.

"Now she knows that is just the way I am and we get on champion. But it is difficult right now because she likes to go line dancing at the club and I am not allowed in. "Some people objected to me talking and complained to the committee. They said I was barred because they did not want me mithering people and talking to them all the time.

"I think it is unfair. If anybody I do not want to talk to starts chattering to me, I just listen. I don't tell them to keep their trap shut."

Father Michael Cleary of Our Lady of Lourdes said: "There is a lot more to this than Mr Owens has told you, but I cannot discuss the matter publicly. "If talking too much was the real reason he would have been asked to leave a long time ago.

"There is a lot more involved and it was a culmination of events. But I'm afraid I cannot go into it because I do not want to get into a public row with Mr Owens."

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