A shop in Wootton Bassett is raising money for Help the Heroes selling copies of a poetic tribute to the town.

Writer Billy Kelly, an Irishman from Manchester, gave the poem to Margaret Friend, owner of The Framing and Stamping Corner Shop in the High Street, last month.

It came after eight soldiers killed in Afghanistan were repatriated to the town. The poem, entitled Thanks, salutes the town for the respect shown to fallen heroes.

Mrs Friend’s husband Alan said: “We don’t know much about this man who wrote the poem, but he came in one day and handed the poem to my wife and said: ‘It’s yours, do what you want with it.’ “At first we thought we would put it in the window for people to read, then we thought we could do better than that, so we put a notice up to let people know they could buy a copy for £1 and all proceeds would go to Help for Heroes.”

Within three weeks, the store raised around £250, and Mr Friend said they had been overwhelmed with customers interested in the poem.

He said: “People are coming in every day to buy the poem.

“A lot of it is local people but also we have had a lot of visitors getting copies, especially on repatriation days.

Mrs Friend added: “It shows the townspeople that people around the world appreciate what we do for our guys who are coming home.

“The poem is called ‘Thanks’ so people are just thanking us and thinking what we do is great.”

For more information about Help for Heroes visit www.helpforheroes.org.uk