A FORMER police chief is travelling to Asia next month on a mercy mission to help a school for the blind.

Fred Farley, who was a police inspector at Darlington, has become a charity worker in his spare time and will travel to Myanmar, formerly Burma, to take supplies to the new school.

The country has huge numbers of blind people due to the treatment they use to combat malaria and malnutrition.

Paul Mung, the school's founder, is native Burmese and went blind after eating quinine bark - which can destroy eyesight - to cure himself of malaria because he had no money for a doctor.

After help from a Christian organisation in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, the keen athlete ran the New York Marathon and learned Braille.

Now he is in the process of helping to build a school for the blind in Ka Lay Myo, near the Indian border in Burma.

Mr Farley is taking out supplies for the school's first ten pupils, including a Braille typewriter, Braille writing kits, maths boards, a generator, talking watches, and tape recorders for the children to listen to stories and music.

He also desperately needs donations for the school so the students - some of whom will be orphans - can be fed three meals a day.

While Mr Farley is visiting, he is also offering to take photographs of war graves for families in the UK.

He will be visiting the Taukgyan and Moumein cemeteries, and will take letters or other items for the graves of the war dead.

He said: "I just thought, while I was out there, I could make the visit. I know the people at the cemeteries and can find any graves."

Anyone wanting photographs of soldiers' war graves can contact Mr Farley on 0191-377 1810.

Donations for the school can be posted to Highfield, 6, Vicarage Terrace, Coxhoe, County Durham, DH6 4AW, with cheques made payable to the Myanmar Fellowship for the Blind.