The Prince of Wales is trying to find two sisters who opened a County Durham chip shop 21 years ago.

And he has enlisted the help of The Northern Echo to trace the young entrepreneurs who were the first in the country to benefit from a bursary set up to help new businesses.

The Prince's Trust is aiming to honour 21 enterprises helped by its Business Start up programme, which was launched in 1983. The 21st anniversary celebrations in November, which coincide with National Enterprise Week, will involve a series of events and exhibitions to profile a range of businesses it has helped.

Rob Cope, of the Prince's Trust, said the Prince of Wales had come up with the idea of involving the first business helped by the scheme. He said: "Clarence House said it would be great to find the first ever business we supported, but our electronic archive only goes back to 1985.

So we asked someone to look through the Prince's own personal archives and we found a newspaper article which profiled this first business in County Durham."

The story revealed that the first recipients of a £1,000 bursary were sisters Annette and Julie Lamb, who used the money to open a fish and chip shop in Trimdon Grange.

The sisters, then aged 20 and 17, were handed the cheque by the Prince and Princess of Wales during a visit to the North-East.

They named their business The Royale Chip Shop, but it has since closed and the Prince's Trust has so far been unable to find the sisters. Mr Cope said: "We sent someone out to Trimdon Grange last week to try and find them, but we weren't surprised to find the chip shop isn't there anymore."

The Prince has lined up 20 other business for the exhibition. Only the founders of the Trimdon chip shop are still to be tracked down.

The trust wants to find the sisters so they can bring their story up-to-date and to involve them in celebrations.

Are you one of the Lamb sisters or know their whereabouts? If so, contact Andrew White on (01325) 505069.