Overwhelming kindness

Manalito Chando first met Carolann Heffernan in a pub in London two years ago. They were introduced by a friend and, despite a small argument which they wouldn't tell me about, there was an immediate chemistry between them.

"We basically hit it off straight away and haven't been apart since," says Irish-born Carolann, 46, who at the time was living in Ealing.

They now live together in Manalito's house in Freshbrook, Swindon, and in April of last year started a ceramic tiling business in the Wroughton business park.

Manalito, a native Indian with ancestral origins in Canada, recalls the moment when news of the tsunami first broke. "My first reaction was one of utter disbelief. The death total was going up every second, every minute."

In September the couple had travelled to Sri Lanka and spent three weeks in the south of the country. They made many friends and were struck by the kindness, generosity and optimism of the local people.

"They were always smiling and forever checking that you were OK," says Manalito. The couple had intended to return to Sri Lanka for Christmas but had fortunately delayed the trip until January because of the busy time of year for their business.

"We kept thinking of the people we had met and whether they were alive. We tried ringing the hotel in Bentota where we knew people and there was nothing. There wasn't even anything from friends who had mobiles," says Carolann.

Since then they've managed to contact the hotel owner where they stayed and who Manalito had taught to make Yorkshire puddings. But there are others whose fate they still do not know.

"There was a young girl, maybe 25, who worked in a franchise shop near the hotel who I used to go and drink coffee with every day. She was desperately poor and I asked her what she wanted me to bring her when we next came back to visit.

She refused time and time again but eventually she said 'Just bring me back your old shoes' ," says Carolann. "Her motto was 'a smile a day keeps the doctor away'. We don't know what's happened to her."

On December 27 contributions began arriving at their tiling company after an appeal on the local radio. "The idea was to collect stuff which we would then transport to London ourselves. We thought originally it would take maybe two days and a couple of van loads," says a grinning but tired Carolann.

"The van was full after a couple of hours and at the end of the first day we knew we were in trouble."

The rate of donations increased by the hour but so too, and perhaps more importantly, did the number of volunteers willing to sort, box, and load items into newly arrived lorries.

"On the first day one of my customers, Colin, came in looking for four tiles and I asked him to help me move six black bags of clothing. He's been here ever since. It's the efforts of people like him, and many others, that's been so overwhelming," says Manalito.

Entire days have been spent (and still are) packing donations and the operation, called the Wiltshire Mercy Appeal, soon expanded to a hangar on the Wroughton airfield courtesy of the Science Museum.

"People have come from Bristol, Devon, even Wales to donate things," says Carolann.

"We had a family here with their grandchildren and the grandchildren each handed over one of their Christmas presents. There were other children who wrote letters to put in the boxes that broke my heart.

"This has undoubtedly been the biggest emotional thing I have ever done in my life, above even losing members of the family," says Manalito.

For Carolann that kind of loss is all too recent. A week before Christmas her 20-year-old nephew, Philip, fell from scaffolding in his home town of Dublin.

He was badly brain damaged and on the day before Christmas Eve his parents took the agonising decision to switch off his life support machine. His organs were donated to help others live.

"We came back on Christmas Eve and thought we could enjoy a quiet, peaceful Christmas together and then all this happened," says Manalito. For Carolann there has been little time to grieve.

On New Year's Eve the army of volunteers at the Wroughton hangar paused from the packing to wish Manalito a happy 45th birthday complete with cake and champagne.

With a wry smile Carolann says: "It was my birthday as well on January 3 but Mano forgot. It has been difficult to keep track of the days and he thought it was only the 2nd.

"To be honest the only reason I knew it was my birthday was because my sister texted me."

However they did later enjoy a take-away at the house of Dr Kandy Kandiah, a Sri Lankan-born Swindon GP, who has become the appeal's medical advisor and is just one of many people they have met since the appeal began.

Manalito says that the appeal, which now has an eight-strong committee, has so far collected more than 500 tonnes of donations, which he calculates is worth about £1.5 million.

Their tiling business has only recently re-opened since the appeal first began and it has suffered as a result. The phone rang seven times in the 45 minutes that I sat talking to Manalito and Carolann and every time it was not to do with the business, but with the appeal.

More than 500 volunteers turned up at Wroughton airfield on Saturday to help Wiltshire Mercy Appeal with the process of unloading cars, sorting out donations, packing them into boxes and then loading them onto pallets.

On Sunday the pallets were loaded on to a convoy of lorries, trucks and vans and taken to Stansted Airport near London where they were transferred to a plane bound for Sri Lanka.

Mayor of Swindon, Coun Peter Stoddart, visited the hangar on Sunday afternoon to see for himself the monumental effort under way.

The appeal says it still needs new underwear, medical supplies including paracetamol, tinned food, baby food (no glass, please), dried milk, rice, tents, blankets, sheets, net curtains (to use as mosquito nets), tarpaulins and water sanitation tablets.

Items can be dropped off at Jackie's discount store in Maryport Street, Devizes, and at Wroughton Airfield. For more information, contact appeal secretary Jacky Smith on 07751 919100 or Alex Duffey on (01380) 720409.

Thank you gift to chief Chando

Chairman of the Wiltshire Mercy Appeal Manalito Chando has been presented with a statue of an Indian chief in recognition of the aid effort he has organised for the stricken people of Sri Lanka.

The bronze statue was presented by Sri Lankan born Swindon GP Dr Kandy Kandiah.

Dr Kandiah, who has become the medical advisor for the Wiltshire Mercy Appeal, said: "Mr Chando is a remarkable man and I would like to give him this statue on behalf of the Sri Lankan people for what he has done.

"There can be only one chief and that chief is Mr Chando."