FORGET lotions and potions and anti-ageing treatments - the secret to staying young is working in fashion, according to one Doncaster shop assistant.

Even though Lynn O'Neill has been working in clothes shops in the town for 45 years, at the age of 60 Lynn looks strikingly similar to a youthful snap taken of her winning "Miss Store Queen" at the Gaumont Cinema in 1969.

Then just 21, Lynn paraded on stage with a dozen other girls during the interval of one of the first screenings of Oliver to eventually be crowned queen in front of a 100-strong audience.

The competition came at the beginning of a long career in fashion which has seen Lynn working in Betty's, Tiffany's, Fenella and, most recently, popular Wood Street boutique Montage.

Lynn, who was brought up in Woodlands and now lives in Skellow, said that she has a really enjoyable job, especially since moving to work with friends in Montage.

She said: "Working in clothes shops keeps you young and keeps you up to fashion. I really enjoy where I work and get on well with all the
customers here, it's a sociable place.

"It's lovely to find the right clothes for people and I like the variation of the work."

Lynn, who only stopped working to have her now grown-up children, said that her only piece of style advice is that shoppers should be more open-minded to try different styles to learn what suits them.

In her many years in fashion, Lynn has seen - and worn - a huge variety of trends including mini-skirts, seventies cocktail dresses, hot pants, shoulder pads and flares.

In the seventies she remembers selling Lulu a cricket sweater when she visited Doncaster to star in the pantomine.

And after marrying her first husband, a hairdresser at the age of 22, her hair has also been kept at the height of fashion, seeing Lynn sporting a short crop, a beehive and a variety of hairpieces. But Lynn is insistent that fashion has only improved over the years. .

She said: "Fashion is great at the moment, the positive thing about today's fashion is that there is always a well-made style to suit everybody. Fashion today is the best I have seen."