SUPPORT has flooded in for the Glocuestershire

Media's Gifts for our Heroes appeal to help soldiers

serving in Afghanistan.

Veterans and members of the public across the county have

signed up to offer help to the campaign, which has been

launched by the Royal British Legion and Gloucestershire

Media.

More than 500 soldiers from 1 Rifles are to be deployed to

the war zone during the next month, mostly made up of troops

from the former Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire

Regiment.

British Legion branches including Cheltenham, Tewkesbury,

Cirencester and Brockworth have offered help to members of the

Hardwicke branch with their Shoebox Appeal, collecting home

comforts to send to troops overseas.

Cheltenham branch member John Hawthornthwaite said: "We did

a national shoebox appeal the first time our boys went to Iraq,

and if the Echo is doing something for the Gloucestershire

soldiers in Afghanistan that's great."

Tewkesbury committee member Sharon Vick is organising

collections at the Legion branch at 50 Church Street.

"We need to support our local lads and show them we're

behind them all the way," she said.

"They are doing a very hard job and a little support will go

a long way and we want each soldier to get a box."

Army veteran Ron Prewer, 72, praised the Gifts for our

Heroes campaign, saying it would be appreciated by all the

soldiers.

"It's fabulous," said Ron, who served his country in the

1950s and sixties.

"First and foremost the boys will know people back home are

thinking of them and appreciate what they're doing.

"Sending them everyday items that are commonplace here will

make a real difference, and they will share them around."

Ron said copies of the Echo sent to the Middle East when he

was a serving soldier had perked up him and his comrades.

Bishop's Cleeve pensioner Helen Rawlings, 74, has started

getting items together, and telling her friends to do the

same.

She said: "I have been on to my grandchildren in Scotland

and they have given me some great ideas for things to put

in."

Hardwicke Royal British Legion organiser Carol Batty said

the branch already had 50 boxes ready to go, and drop-off

points for the gifts in Cheltenham would be announced in the

coming days.

Points confirmed are Newent News in Broad Street, Newent,

and the Tewkesbury branch at 50 Church Street.

The Legion doesn't want people to send in filled shoeboxes,

just the gifts which could include tea bags, stock cubes, wet

wipes and instant powder soup but not chocolate.

The boxes must weigh a maximum of 2kg.