A 40-TON lorry set off from Colnbrook on Thursday afternoon last week heading for the Greek-Macedonian border, laden with vitally needed supplies to ease the suffering of Syrian refugees.

It marked the climax of a month of hard work carried out by mum of two Jennifer McGeachie, 30, of Albany Road, Old Windsor.

Mrs McGeachie set up a Facebook page appealing for people to help her organise a collection of vital items for the refugees.

Earlier this month the auditorium at Windsor’s Firestation Arts Centre was packed with items, with teams of volunteers loading them into vans provided by courier company AmWorld, of Blackthorne Road, Colnbrook.

AmWorld took them to Manchester where a convoy was being organised by the charity Syria Relief UK.

Two weeks after that, the donations had kept pouring in. By last week Mrs McGeachie and fellow organiser Lauren Hall had raised £3,000 through Just Giving online page, enough to acquire a lorry.

The items on the lorry set off for the Greek-Macedonian border – the journey organised by Syria Relief UK.

Mrs McGeachie said: “I’m very proud of the team that has worked together to do this. There has been a core team that has worked together every night and AmWorld has shown more generosity than we would have thought possible.”

She said that separate teams of volunteers from London, Wokingham and Ascot had donated items that they had been able to add to the lorry's load.

Again there was no shortage of volunteers at Colnbrook to load it all up - including firefighters from Slough, Langley and Windsor.