A KIND-hearted Hampshire couple have helped ensure scores of poverty-stricken African children get at least one hot meal a day.

Paul and Jean Brown have returned from a trip to the Gambia where they bought 200 sacks of rice to feed the 1,466 pupils of Sanchaba Sulay Jobe Lower School, near the town of Kanifi.

It is the latest in a series of aid trips the couple have made since visiting the West African country for a holiday in 1998.

So touched were they by the plight of the hungry children that they have been returning ever since with bags of rice paid for through fundraising events held in their home of Bishop's Waltham.

Mr Brown said: "The previously delivered rice had been consumed months ago as we expected.

"I wish you could have seen the head mistress, Isatou's face and heard her shriek of joy when we told her that she was to expect and prepare for a delivery of more than 200 sacks of rice."

The World Food Programme recently decided to withdraw rice from schools in the area and redistribute it further north.

Mr Brown, 55, a retired police officer, said: "A lot of questions have been asked about why the deliveries stopped, but at least this load will keep them eating until about next February."

It was not only the children who were in for a surprise.

The school cook also received her first ever tin opener and, after years of using a knife, was delighted with her present.

Mrs Brown said: "Having never used one before and with a worried look on her face, I helped guide her hand and she used a tin opener for the first time. And we both still have all our fingers."

Although they have just returned, no doubt the Browns will soon be preparing more fundraising events for their next mercy trip to Africa.