THOUSANDS of books collected by pupils of a Newton Aycliffe comprehensive school are to be used in classrooms thousands of miles away.

Don Cowper, regional campaign manager for Bus-iness in the Community, was overwhelmed by the response when he sent out an appeal for books to send to Africa.

Pupils from schools around the region pulled out all the stops and collected nearly 20,000 books, which will make up seven libraries.

Woodham Community Technology College is one of the schools in a twinning scheme, which Mr Cowper set up as part of a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship, which he was awarded last year.

The books collected by Woodham pupils will go to a school in South Africa. Mr Cowper said: "The purpose of the twinning was to encour-age the collection of thousands of school books to support the educational dev-elopment of pupils in South Africa. "Despite the progress there has been in that country, there is still a great need for outside support."

He said: "I am delighted with the response from the pupils of Woodham, and I am very grateful to DHL World-wide Express for transport-ing the books free of charge."