Charity knitter Val Fuller has put smiles on the faces of children in Gambia after sending hand-made jumpers.

The 89-year-old, of Five Stiles Road, Marlborough, usually knits for children in Zimbabwe through her WI group in Hampshire but a problem at customs meant she was left with 12 jumpers.

She decided to donate the colourful knits, ranging in sizes from birth to aged nine, to the Marlborough Brandt Group through its director Dr Nick Maurice and a member took them to the Gunjur in Gambia a few weeks ago.

She said: “There was a bit of controversy, I think some of the WI’s members put more than what they were supposed to in the parcels and naturally customs thought something was going on so they stopped it.

“I thought ‘I don’t know what do with them’ and then thought ‘Dr Nick goes out to the Gunjar, I wonder if he’d be interested in taking them?’ “So I phoned him up and he was so thrilled and took them off my hands.

"I asked for some photos and when Nick pointed out two twins I thought ‘wonderful’ because the patterns were almost identical. He said the children were absolutely thrilled and I was so pleased.”

The grandmother-of-two was introduced to the Longstock and Leckford Women’s Institute by her daughter, Mickey, more than 10 years ago and has been knitting ever since.

She has now started work on her next lot of jumpers, which will be split between children in Zimbabwe and the Gunjar.

She said: “Customs have relented. It was explained what had happened and that we weren’t trying to do a fiddle so everything has worked out all right.”