CHURCH leaders were left astonished after hundreds of people crammed into a school hall to hear the general election candidates for Chesham and Amersham.

Despite talk of election apathy and a low turnout, more than 300 people from the constituency came to the hustings at Dr Challoner's Grammar school in Amersham on Tuesday.

On a hot spring evening it was standing room only and people stood by the open doors listening to the two hour long discussion organised by the Churches on the Hill and the Amersham and Chesham Free Press.

The issues discussed included education, world aid, Central Railway, poverty and British sovereignty

The meeting was chaired by Bryan Long, a free church member and chairman of the South Bucks NHS Trust.

He gave the six hopefuls just three minutes each to have their say, leaving plenty of time for questions from the floor and discussion.

Kenneth Prideaux-Brown, secretary of the Churches on the Hill liaison group said this was the first time Churches on the Hill had organised a hustings and it was possibly the first of its type in the town.

He said it gave everyone an opportunity to see and hear the candidates and see how they reacted to one another.

But he was astonished at the number of people present.

Church members had been told about it, but most people had just turned up on the night.

But the questions had not been selected in advance, said Mr Prideaux-Brown: "We thought it would have been too complicated to ask people to submit questions. These were genuine questions from the floor."

The candidates are: Cheryl Gillan, Conservative; Labour's Ken Hulme; Lib Dem John Ford; Nick Wilkins of the Greens; Ian Harvey of the UKIP; and Gill Duval of the Pro Life Alliance.

Mrs Gillan, who was first elected to Chesham and Amersham in 1992, is defending a majority of almost 14,000.

She caused a ripple when, in a discussion about Britain sovereignty, she said she thought any referendum run by Tony Blair on whether or not Britain should join the single European currency would be rigged.

Mr Hulme immediately denied that the Prime Minister would do any such thing.

There did not appear to be much unfettered enthusiasm for the European Union among the audience and on the platform only Mr Ford, the Lib Dem, expressed keenness for joining the single currency.

The Greens are against joining and the UKIP's main theme is that Britain should quit the union completely.

Euro-scepticism is a big feature of the Tory election campaign at this election so Mrs Gillam and Mr Harvey found their views almost coinciding on the several questions about British sovereignty.