Chernobyl Children ...................... Duke of Edinborough's

I read about "Chernobyl Children Life Line" in the Daily Express. It is a charity which pays forchildren who have been affected by the nuclear accident in Belarus to come to England for one month's recuperation. the Headmaster agreed that we could host a group of 10 children and after an appeal, parents of pupils at our schools volunteered to accommodate the children. The big day came and we met the children with their accompanying adult at Gatwick - imagine our surprise when we counted 11 children instead of 10 - one bonus girl who one ofthe mothers was happy to take as an extra. We had expected the children to speak passable English but only 2 of them spoke a little. Furthermore they had not been told that they were coming to school! Consequently there were quite a few initial problems over supervision ofthe children, especially atUnderhill, howeverthese were overcome and I am very grateful to the staff and helpers at Underhill for what they did. The children were aged from 10 to 14 and naturally enough there were homesickness problems at the beginning, but as the programme got underway these became diluted. The aim ofthe trip was to give the children a month of good eating, fresh air and a pleasurable time to help them to recoverboth mentally and physically. Three of our group had undergone operations and radiotherapy for thyroid cancer. At least one close relative of each ofthe others in our group has recently died ofa radiation related disease. The children were from avariety ofbackgrounds ranging from children of professional people to a peasant boy from a village who shared his 3 bedroom flat at home with

2 other families - 16 people in all! One of our aims was to obtain dental care for the children and I was delighted with the response from local dentists (2 in Cranbrook, 2 in Headcom, 1 in Staplehurst and 2 in Bearsted) who agreed to look after the children free of charge. Many of them needed 3 or 4 appointments. I also had a wonderful response from places in the local area who agreed to take the children free of charge - we went: swimming at Mote Park 4 times, 1 0-pin bowling in Maidstone and visited Port Lympne Zoo, Chatham Historic Dockyard, Cranbrook Windmill (firsteverview ofawindmill), The SeaLife Centre at Hastings (first ever view ofthe sea), The Rare Breeds Centre, Leeds Castle, The Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, The Houses of Parliament and Tower of London and MacDonalds in Maidstone. Apart from these visits, many parents took their host children on other trips. The RAF flew a chinook helicopter in to Sutton Valence to give the RAF cadets a flight, but came in

January so that the Belarussians could see it. Another highlight was the visit from the Kent Police and Fire Service who brought a fire engine, 4 motor bikes and a landrover - the visit was great fun - the children were allowed to put on the police uniforms, talk over the walkie-talkies and use the fire hoses. We finished the visit with a party at school to which the external helpers were invited - a highlight of the party was a performance by the amazing ChristopheLindenschmidt: jugglerand monocyclist extrodinaire! We were able to give some money to the Charity from a quiz held in December, some Carol Service donations and £ 160 which was raised by the girls of Cornwallis House (well done girls). Our money will pay for another 2 children to visit England. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity of the host parents. Not only did they give the children all sorts of material goods (toys, shoes and clothes especially) but they showed them genuine caring love which I think the children will remember forever. Friendships were made and at least 2 parents intend to bring their child back again for a second visit. When the children arrived at Gatwick they each had a small holdall ofclothes, but when they left they each had 3 or 4 cases full ofclothes given by parents and well wishers. The aims of the visit were achieved. All ofthe children enjoyed themselves and they went back looking much healthier than when they arrived. Despite the problems and organisation involved the visit was well worthwhile: we have shown some disadvantaged children friendship and we have given them aholiday in which to recover to a certain extent. I hope that we shall be able to repeat the experiment again sometime.