PEOPLE from across the North West were seen wandering around one of the area's tiny villages with black bin bags full of booty this week.

They did so on the advice of The Express newspaper which asked its readers to donate jumble for the victims of the Kosovo war at Silverdale in Lancashire when they should have written Silverdale in Staffordshire!.

As a result charity givers from as far away as Bolton and Blackpool made their way to the remote village looking for a non-existent street to donate their jumble.

Luckily the people of Silverdale rallied round. David Kite of Arnside was already organising help for the Kosovans, so he and a few others plastered posters all over the village explaining where people could drop off their contributions.

One of those people was David Johnson, warden of the nearby Leeds Holiday Camp, who agreed to store the blankets, clothes and other useful items. He laughed: "We've so much stuff here it's unbelievable.

"There's more than 700 bags so far and a lot of it is really good stuff. I just feel sorry for all those people who were wandering around. Luckily The Express have established us as an official national pick up point now."

Staff at Leeds Holiday Home were also celebrating the success of their appeal to raise £7,000 for 40 new, non-metal, beds and furnishings for the underprivileged children who use the camp on their few days holiday.

Assistant editor of The Express, Michael Streeter, commented: "Obviously it's a regrettable error which we corrected in the paper. I would just like to emphasise the amazing reaction of the public in your area towards Kosovo."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.