PROTESTERS have taken to the knife and had their heads shaved in York city centre.

Mick Storey, Amanda Maffett and Liz Sourbut are all lock-less after the sponsored head-shave in Davygate on Saturday.

They were inspired into trying to raise awareness for the plight of an African people, the Botswanan bushmen, after seeing ten-year-old Ruby Milnes, from Bishophill, York, in the Evening Press last year after she shaved her hair off for the same cause.

Mick, 46, from Dunnington, said: "Ruby was such an inspiration to us and for helping to make the plight in Botswana known.

"The bushmen have lived on their land for 20,000 years and now the government there is trying to intimidate them into leaving their land.

"We want to promote the rights of these people and keep this old culture alive. They are defenceless but we are not."

All the money raised is going to Survival International, a charity which fights for the rights of old cultures.

Updated: 09:01 Monday, March 25, 2002