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Thanks to the kind donation of a load of traffic cones from my friends Sue and Chris the car park was safely cordoned off from public traffic keeping everyone safe while the loading took place.

Wonder-woman of logistics, Claire, arrived at 7.30am on the 8^th October ready to get some loaded pallets outside, set out the traffic cones in the car park to keep cars and pedestrians clear of the proceedings as well as to direct school drop off parking; woman of all trades is our Claire and none of this would have been possible without her direction and determination to get it all done as smoothly as possible - thanks a million Claire!

When I arrived at 8.30am Claire was ably directing school traffic around the car park so I set about sorting the last of the toiletries into boxes and helped with the constant stream of further donations as they arrived all through the day.

A few days previously I had written to our local Conservative MP inviting him down on the 8th October to see the magnitude of donations that the community (and further afield) had amassed as they were loaded onto the convoy vehicles, but he hadn't got back to me. It was a real shame as we were so proud of how the community had united for the cause. [UPDATE: he consequently replied late on the 10th October with his apologies for not replying sooner. I've subsequently been contacted by his secretary and he is visiting us at West Wycombe on Friday 23rd October]

The Bucks Free Press had been invited to report on the loading event and a photographer showed up to capture the ‘moment’. The editor wanted some quotes about the whole experience; Claire didn’t want to be involved in the report and Ann was away from the storage unit running around for her family so that left me to try and tell our 'story' as best I could. I hoped that I had done it justice, only time would tell if it ever reached the paper that is [it didn't by the way - good news doesn't sell papers]

In between sorting, packing and moving boxes in and out of the warehouse I had been taking photos of the donations in the unit and outside on pallets. I took photos of donations arriving with the promise that I would send copies of the pictures to any companies for their publicity purposes.

The forklift truck arrived at midday and started to load the lorry. That was a wonderful sight, all our efforts finally being lifted into that lorry felt so good. I snapped away through the whole loading while attempting to be car park monitor at the same time; it was the end of the school day and all the parents were arriving and departing.

It was around this time that Ann had spoken to John Sloan at the warehouse in Calais who basically asked if we could delay our trip for a week, or more ... NOOOO!

Apparently, the warehouse had been given notice to move everything out within the next two weeks by the present owner as he had 'not been aware that his warehouse was being used to store refugee donations', which he was opposed to! This bigotry is very common in France, understandably to a certain degree, but that's another story.

Anyhow, Ann diplomatically explained that we had been donated the lorry and other vehicles and all our volunteers (18 in total) had taken time off work to make this trip happen therefore we could definitely not delay, unfortunately.  So the trip was still on!

Oh, and one other thing to mention is that the owner of the warehouse has taken away the forklift truck so when our 40 foot lorry arrived we would have to take every item off it, BY HAND!!

I left the West Wycombe storage unit to go and pack and the message came through to say that the lorry was now on its way to Folkestone.The next time we would see it would be at the warehouse in Calais - Eeeek this was really happening!


I would just like to say here that we had such an incredible amount of help from local individuals and business with many items pledged for free or heavily discounted for this mission, we are truly grateful to everyone who enabled us to make the whole trip possible, those who contributed are listed below (not in any particular order):-

Southernplant Tool Hire
Dashwood Estate
Octagon Books,
Staff at:-
Sainsburys
Asda
Tiger Taxis
Notcutts 
The Apple Orchard 
Les Liney Hire
Tesco Loudwater and High Wycombe
Chiltern Recycling
ALB Plants for wooden crates
MPS Clothing Range (for our Hi-Vis jackets)
St Francis Church Terriers
University of Oxford
Holy Trinity Church Hazlemere
St Peter’s Catholic School Marlow
Radnage CofE School
The Downley School – Year 1
Karen Colebeck Photography
The Quaker House London Road
Bay Tracks Ltd
Treasured Keepsakes
Shaida Designs High Wycombe
5th Scouts Group Stevenage
GV Health Ltd
Group of friends in Chalfont St Peter
The Drawing Room
The Jolly Sportsman Pub
The Little Orchard
Chesham local people
Berko helping refugees
Shanly Homes
Elite Electrics Cryers Hill
Princes Risborough- donations for refugees