NINE young children from Chernobyl are this month enjoying the wonderful sights and sounds of Dartmoor.

The Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline supports children and families by bringing them to Britain for a holiday, which is said to increase a Chernobyl child’s life expectancy by five years.

Last Thursday, the children enjoyed a Dartmoor walk at Four Winds and looked at Merrivale antiquities led by Moorland Guiders Simon Dell, Richard Ware and Peter Glanville, visiting the Two Bridges Hotel afterwards where they enjoyed tea.

The youngsters come from Belarus, an area still feeling the effects of the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl in April 1986. Up to 70% of the radioactive material released in the explosion settled on Belarus. The land remains contaminated and as a result, many children develop thyroid cancer, bone cancer and leukaemia.

The day on Dartmoor is organised annually by Barbara Baycock, from the Commandery of Avalon, the Westcountry branch of the Military and Hospitaller Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem, in partnership with The Two Bridges Hotel.