Hats off to Nailsworth Rotary, Brutons Home Hardware and the Yellow Lighted Bookshop for their joint initiative to distribute books for children with the Stroud District Food Bank Christmas hampers.

I am surprised that their fundraising is not already bursting through the £2000 target threshold – what is education if not the lighting of the fire of the imagination?

And don’t we need rocket-fuelled imagination more than ever to take our mournful world forward into the next decades.

As a former teacher of many years, I urge you to support this endeavour, and help a child imagine a life different from the one in which they may feel themselves unhappily confined.

Go to the Rotary Club of Nailsworth website and click on Books for Children to make a donation.

Ursula Jeakins

Haresfield