SVS and Underhill welcome Children from Chernobyl 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.
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!
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
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
