Clipping from page ten of the South Wales Echo titled 'Help 'Russian' in for Steve', reporting on a volunteer heading to Russia to renovate a children's home, Cardiff, 15 April 1994

Description

An article from the South Wales Echo reporting on the help being offered to Steve Venn of Grangetown, to finance him to go to Russia with the That's Life TV programme to renovate a children's hospital.

Dame Esther Rantzen presented the BBC's 'That’s Life!' from 1973 to 1994. The BBC website has a blog of her recollections at www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/0f3e1fef-4f0a-47c4-950b-189c85a7e8a1 (accessed 9/4/17).

The article reads:

Help 'Russian' in for Steve - By Peter Bibby

HELP TO send out-of-work painter and decorator Steve Venn to Russia with the That’s Life TV team to renovate a children's hospital is still flooding in.

The 26-year-old handyman - picked by Esther Rantzen to join 200 other skilled tradesmen and women from all over Britain to spend next week in St Petersburg - has been given the £430 needed to finance the trip to Russia and his stay there while helping to give the Kosmo children's home a complete facelift.

And after the Echo revealed social security chiefs had put a stop to his £44 income support benefit while he’s away, he was promised all that - and more.

Wayne Roberts, owner of the Wynford Hotel in Clare Road, Cardiff, said he'd not only give Steve the £44 he’s going to lose, but double it at the same time.

The deputy Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Coun Winston Griffiths, who represents Tongwynlais on the city council, promised another £50.

British Rail donated a return rail ticket to London, to save Steve the cost of his journey to and from Gatwick Airport.

And Cardiff's Lord Mayor Vic Riley said he'll lay on a reception in his City Hall parlour for the redundant decorator after he returns from his mercy mission to Russia.

“I can't believe how kind people have been,” said Steve, who lives in a flat in Clare Road, Riverside. “I'm now going to be able to buy a decent pair of steel capped working boots which the Russian authorities insist on everyone wearing.

“I just can’t wait to get going now. It's been a worry up until the last few days knowing exactly where the money was going to come from. But thanks to the Echo and its readers I can now go without having to go further into debt.”

From Microform, Local Studies, Cardiff Library.
Image created by The British Library Board.
Copyright: Media Wales.