Your donations on their way to refugees

She had originally planned to give the donations to Emmaus, an Oxford-based charity which is running supplies to refugees in Calais, but given the amount that has been contributed they were unable to take them.

However, the items were collected on Tuesday by the Haroon Jahan Foundation, a charitable organisation set up by Tariq Jahan, who helped restore calm to the streets of Birmingham following the death of his son Haroon during the riots of 2011.

The supplies will now be sent to Lesbos, which has received large numbers of refugees making the dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean, instead of to Calais.

Tariq said: “We’ll do this trip 100 times over if we have to, we need people to know that the people of Britain care about what’s going on.

“There is so much suffering going on in the world, when people see those images of the refugees they can feel that suffering, they are in desperate, desperate need and I think people in Britain realise that and their mind set is changing.

“We only started collecting yesterday but we’ve already filled three or four vans and we hope to have around ten to 15 full by the time we set off. The way Stratford has contributed has been very good, these items will save lives.”

Sandy added: “I didn’t know how much I would get, I just put the call out there and it has been amazing, I never anticipated getting this much stuff or this much help. We’ve got all we can take at the moment.”