There's gold in those plastic hills `People look down on dry-slope skiing, saying they can't perform on it. What th ey mean is they can't ski'

Ski-crazy Claire van Kempen was delighted when decorative flakes of snow fell outside her St Neots home this week. Trouble is, it wouldn't have done her much good even if God had shovelled a few feet of the stuff off his driveway. In Cambridgeshi re, where a hill is any geographical feature higher than a saloon car, finding a decent downhill run is about as likely discovering oil in your back garden (unless you're a Queen, of course). Anyway, the idea of a promising young skier getting excited by a few inches of slush seems a bit like a twitcher enthusing over Trafalgar Square pigeons.

But for this willowy 13-year-old, snow is the stuff of dreams. Though the front room of her parents' semi has ski trophies everywhere, Claire has never skied on snow. All her success has been on the slopes of exotic Alpine resorts like Southampton, Shef

f ield and Welwyn.

Though Britain and skiing go together in most people's minds like jam and oysters, we lead the world when it comes to dry-slope skiing. There are 154 artificial ski hills in the UK, more than the rest of the world put together, with courses as long as 400 metres featuring those jumps, moguls, waves and bumps that you find in places where they charge £5 for a coffee. Though the Klosters brigade may mock the idea of skiing on plastic, saying it is like show jumping on fairground horses, many find plastic snow an invaluable way to remind once-a-year muscles what they're for.

Claire's father, Piet, chairman of the Bassingbourn Ski Club and a ski instructor, says: "There's no difference between this and snow-skiing, except that some slopes insist on rounded ends to the skis for safety reasons. But a lot of people look down on dry-slope skiing , saying they can't perform on it because it is so artificial. What they actually mean is that they can't ski. You can get away with a lot more on snow, because it forgives your mistakes." Reassuring stuff for those who like to boast about their injuries. Claire has already collected those war wounds of the piste, a broken arm and a chipped elbow, though this week's flurries are the closest she has been to real snow.

Piet and his wife Daphne started skiing on dry slopes and have only been on snow three times in nearly 20 years. "One of the big advantages is that it's much cheaper - our club only charges £25 for four two-hour lessons. For newcomers, it's far better tohave a few hours on artificial slopes rather than waste the first few days of an expensive holiday learning the basics."

But it has also become a sport in its own right. Throughout the summer, there are competitions all over the country, including a national championships that has been running for 20 years. "It would be nice if the racing season went right through the year, but many people are away skiing on snow in the winter," Claire said, somewhat enviously.

Dual slalom, where two racers compete simultaneously alongside one another, is the most popular because it enables spectators to see more clearly who is winning. There is also freestyle, where the emphasis is on balletic and gymnastic movements rather than trying to reach the bottom first without breaking your neck.

The Bassingbourn club, which uses a slope on an army camp originally built by the Royal Engineers for junior soldiers, has a good record in freestyle. Its 300 members include Zoe Gazeley, 17, who won the All-England Open Freestyle Championships this yearand was runner up in the British Championships (held in Switzerland). Her brother Simon was 10th overall in slalom at the All-England event, though he is just 15. Fiona Kerridge Reynolds, a former member of the British ski team, also learnt her trade atBassingbourn, a nondescript Cambridge village whose apres-ski facilities still need developing a little. My Cassell's Gazetteer rates the village's highlight as a 14th century church, which probably isn't enough to steal the Val d'Isere market.

Claire has all the promise to achieve international success. She was trundling down the 70-metre slope almost as soon as she could walk, and won the fastest female skier award at the club last year. "I'm going to do even better this year because I've gota different mental attitude now," she says.

Third in her age group in the eastern region championships, she is already helping beginners at the club and has been invited to train with Steve Dalton, the England freestyle coach. "Unfortunately, it means travelling every weekend to Southampton, whic

h is very difficult for us," her father says.

Claire's eight-year-old sister, Wendy, may be an even better prospect. She has won every race that she has entered in her age group. "The problem at the moment is stopping her waving to her friends on the way down," her mother says.

Both children dream of skiing on the real stuff and not just watching it from the front window. A few years ago, they almost had their wish. Piet says: "We actually went to Aviemore in Scotland so Claire could ski on snow. But it was raining."