WE ARE under way - it is the 23rd BBC Children in Need day!

Do not be surprised if you see a man catching a ferry to the Isle of Wight on stilts or a policeman playing rugby in a tutu.

Tens of thousands of people in the south are taking part by raising money in wacky ways to help deprived children across the nation.

And if you are a supermarket manager be afraid - be very afraid.

Asda stores have got staff bathing in anything from pasta sauce to custard.

But the manager of the Safeway petrol

station on Spruce Drive in Calmore, Totton has really let himself in for it.

Alan Hibberd said if staff and customers could raise more than £500 for the BBC telethon he would shave his head.

The 45-year-old has long, ginger hair reaching half way down his back.

With £700 already in the kitty, Alan is making the most of his locks while he can, including his goatee beard, which will also go.

All over the county, capers and jolly japes are helping the bid to smash last year's nationwide record of £25m.

Talented staff and pupils at Redbridge Community School will do their own version of Stars in their Eyes.

The acts to be imitated are tightly under wraps until the show begins at 7pm tonight.

But the Daily Echo can reveal there may be a welsh heartthrob or a double act from the 1960s among the line-up.

Tim Shephard from Interserve, the company building the new school at the Cuckmere Lane site, will play a certain builder renowned for his motivated work ethic.

Andy 'Stilts' Walker is planning to stroll on his stilts for a staggering ten hours.

He will promenade along Southampton town centre before catching the Red Funnel ferry to Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

Barclays Bank has promised to match pound for pound whatever the teacher raises in his 'tall-a-thon'.

"We hope to raise at least £5,000. Until now I have walked in my stilts for a maximum of about four hours. I started extra training to strengthen my legs," said Andy.

The Southampton University American Football team are booked in for an aerobics session at 2pm. Dressed in full kit, the Southampton Stags will be sweating after their three-hour work out.

Meanwhile, the team's cheerleaders, the Southampton Vixens, will be washing cars to raise money.

Boat races will make a splash in the usually serene waters of the school swimming pool at Rookesbury Park School in Wickham near Fareham.

Children from years seven and eight will race remote control boats round the pool starting at 2.45pm.

Money will be raised for Pudsey as teachers, parents and classmates bet on who will record the most laps.

The Right Touch salon in the Hundred in Romsey will be giving male visitors a lesson in pain.

Owner Dawn Wright and manager Jenny Burd will be waxing mens' legs starting with local window cleaner and character Ian Richards at 3pm.

Pupils at Beaulieu Infant School have been buying Pudsey biscuits.

Nikki Pestelle, cook at William Gilpin School in Pilley, the New Forest, baked the 130 biscuits to be gobbled up by the school's 100 children. Today they will give extra donations to bring their teddy bears to school.

Scores of other schools are also baking biscuits, dressing teddies and leaving uniforms at home.

Pupils at Millbrook Community School are each paying £1 to wear home clothes and their teachers are paying the same but must wear a costume in the theme of stars and stripes.

Foxhills Infant School Parent Teacher Association will be making biscuits to sell to Asda customers tomorrow at the Totton branch.

But Hazel Wood Infant School in Calmore, Totton have already sold 650 biscuits at 25p each

With 15p per biscuit going to Children in Need, Pudsey's pockets are already over £95 heavier.

A Chinook from RAF Odiham will land on the Lordshill Recreation Ground, on Redbridge Lane, to present a cheque for £3,800 to Children in Need.

They raised the cash by running, swimming and cycling a triathlon.

Members of Brick Fields Horse Country will showjump in fancy dress to raise funds for the worthy charity.

The huge array of costumes will include naughty nuns, the Vicar of Dibley, Robin Hood, bunny girls, the Tweenies and Only Fools and Horses.

Jumpers aged eight to 50 will race in 21 teams of four round the course at Ryde on the Isle of Wight starting at 6pm.

The three teams with the lowest scores will win, pending a 'jump-off' if there is a tie between two teams.

Staff at Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton will dress as Pop Idols and charge patients to guess which one they are.

Radio Solent DJ Sylv Willoughby has sold-out her cover of Southampton funnyman Benny Hill's classic song Ernie about the fast driving Eastleigh milkman.

Pupils at the Leapfrog Day Nursery in Chandlers Ford will leapfrog all day dressed as frogs.

Those crazy gals from Adtrader will walk from their office in Romsey to BBC's Broadcasting House in Southampton dressed in pyjamas and wacky headgear.

Eastleigh Rugby Club are staging a Floodlit Festival of Fun featuring more fancy dressed rugby players than you could shake a stick at. Kick off is at 5pm at Bishopstoke Playing Fields in Eastleigh.

Brendan Nursing Trust organised a fancy dress football tournament last Saturda to raise funds.

Children at Brookfield School in Sarisbury Green, Southampton held a sponsored silence on Tuesday.

Lucy Payne, 10, and Alice Taylor, 11, of the King's Primary School, West End, gave their thought for the day on the BBC Solent breakfast programme on how they would like the world to be in 20 years time.

Hampshire carpet fitter Roger Beale has spent the last five weeks having a huge tattoo of Elvis etched on his back.

Compass Accountants Limited will be dressing up as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and doing a sponsored walk from their offices in Titchfield to the BBC TV studios in Southampton. They will be aiming to raise as much money as possible and also prove that accountants do have fun too!