SUPERMARKET staff made a clean sweep of Bolton Art Gallery's shelves for their own exhibition, which opens today.

Five members of staff from the town's Morrison's store have finally picked their favourite works of art for the "Out of the Vaults" exhibition.

And over the next few weeks visitors to the art gallery will be able to see the hidden works selected from the building's extensive art, natural history and ceramics collections.

Next to each exhibit there is a quote from the person who chose it explaining why they wanted it included in the final display. The supermarket staff are restaurant manager Caroline Briars, 54; checkout girl Lisa Pulford, 23; pizza-maker Jean Andrews, 49; butchery manager Les Jones and sales assistant David Rothwell, 23.

Each had different tastes and reasons for choosing their exhibits but all are agreed that allowing the public exhibition is a great idea to get people through the art gallery doors.

Caroline had never set foot inside the building before the project and said: "It has been a real eye opener.

"At first we thought we were just picking a picture - we could not believe they would let us put on a whole display. "But it has been really great and we have thoroughly enjoyed it. I did not realise Bolton had so much art. Going into those vaults was just amazing."

All five decided an old painting of a fairground scene on the Morrison's site at Blackhorse Street should take centre stage in the exhibition as a strong Bolton section.

Les wanted to surprise people about the number of animals that can be seen in Bolton so he picked a large number of natural history exhibits while keen hill walker Les favoured 18th century landscapes of places he has visited.

Lisa, Caroline and Jean found they had very similar tastes and decided to include a section on restful, peaceful paintings. "We all have quite stressful jobs so we wanted pictures of warm, sunny, places to take our minds off work," said Jean, who will be back behind her pizza counter today.

HUMBLE Nellie the budgie is flying high after the supermarket staff plucked her from storeroom obscurity for a starring role in the exhibition.

The dead budgie arrived at the museum in a box with a note from it's heartbroken owner in 1987.

Museum taxidermists preserved Nellie as requested but she was always left on the storeroom perch while more exotic species were chosen for display. But thanks to the Morrison's staff Nellie has now taken her rightful place alongside colourful creatures such as the Azure Winged Magpie and the Scarlet Ibis.

Caroline explained: "As soon as we saw her we wanted her.

"She is only a humble budgie but we think she is lovely.

"She is a reminder that Bolton is a down to earth to town and we should keep our feet on the ground."

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