I thought the day of finally handing over the cricket equipment which was kindly organised by Mark Samways and donated by Hampton School last year would never come.
Despite your generosity it had been a long complicated journey which at many points along the way I confess to almost giving up, especially when we were asked to pay £700 import duty. (We eventually settled on £20 thanks to the persistence of our Project Director, who made three trips to Colombo).
This children's Institution is described as a Detention Centre, but in fact is home to about 200 boys and girls many who were abandoned as babies through poverty. They have nothing. And no one.
The pure joy, pleasure and excitement when the boys received these items, squeals of delight at trying on real cricket gloves and helmets, holding a real bat when you usually use a stick, well it brought us to tears, and if you could measure happiness - it went way off the Richter scale!
On the journey there I vowed I would never ever attempt such a time consuming feat again, but on the way back I knew I would do it again in a heart beat.
