THE congregation of St Nicholas and St Peter’s Church in Shaldon have been busy in recent weeks, raising money for a charity called Toilet Twinning.

Funds were raised in ‘exciting’ ways; the first was a pancake party to mark the 101st birthday of Muriel Hutt followed by a Lent Lunch run in conjunction with the Methodist church, and finally a sumptuous afternoon tea at the home of reverends Philip and Caroline Luff.

Along with events, generous donations rolled in, and soon the total reached a magnificent £1,500, which is enough to sponsor the building of 25 compostable toilets in poor rural areas around the world – from Honduras to Haiti and Nicaragua to Nepal.

Without adequate sanitation, diseases spread and infant mortality rises. The provision of a simple compostable toilet and hygiene education reduces disease and improves the life and health of the local community.

The congregation were invited by the charity to become a Toilet Twinning Community. The chairman of Shaldon Parish Council, Cllr Tim Biddlestone, was delighted by the idea and accepted the invitation.

He recalled that when he was a lad on the building sites, he dug pits as a lavatory for the men on site.