A city councillor has played Santa Claus and donated a special Christmas and millennium gift to the children of Horsforth.

Coun Brian Cleasby (Lib Dem, Horsforth) has donated a Pentium computer to Horsforth Museum for children to use as a way of learning about the history of their town. It replaces the museum's last computer, which was outdated, and not millennium compliant.

"This is a Christmas present to the museum, which I have bought with my councillor's MICE money," Coun Cleasby said. "It will help the museum do everything from educational work to printing stickers for displays."

MICE moneystands for Members' Improvement to the Community and Environment.

Museum curator Ron Hartley said: "I would like to thank Councillor Cleasby for his generosity. The computer is a vital addition to our work."

And Coun Cleasby said that the museum's computer was just the start.

"Once this gets up and running, I'm going to invite the schools to have a look at it and see if they like it. If they do, I will buy them one as well," he said.

"I believe it is vitally important to get as many computers into classrooms as possible because that is the way education is going. If youngsters spend most of their time playing on the Playstation or Nintendo, then it's through computers that we need to reach them."

The computers are available from Roseville Enterprises, an arm of Leeds City Council based in Roundhay, Leeds. Apparently, many Leeds people have discarded their computers, thinking that they will not work in the new millennium - only for Roseville to pick them up, make them millennium compliant and sell them on for a cheap price.

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