Children could be at risk from an influx of visitors on the trail of the Cottingley Fairies, a public meeting was told.

Anne Ashton, head teacher of Cottingley First School, said there had already been incidents in the village where children as young as seven had been approached by strangers.

"Five young children were playing in the village one Sunday morning when two gentlemen came over and asked them to hold little fairies and have their photographs taken," she said.

"Who know what could have happened if one of them had told them he had a car full of little fairies and taken one of the children away?"

Police have since visited the school to reiterate warnings about not talking to strangers.

Mrs Ashton was speaking to a public meeting held at Cottingley Town Hall on Saturday in the wake of the successful release of the film Fairytale - A True Story.

The film, starring Peter O'Toole and Harvey Keitel, tells the story of how Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright fooled the world with their hoax photographs of fairies.

More than two dozen residents attended the meeting, which was called to draw up plans for coping with a possible influx of tourists looking for the site where the pictures were taken.

The Telegraph & Argus has teamed up with Amateur Photographer magazine to raise cash to bring the fairy pictures and cameras back to Bradford.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.