The southern coast of Sri Lanka was devastated by the Asian tsunami. In the second of a three-part series a year after the tragedy, Lindsay Jennings hears how one North-East couple helped to rebuild a stricken community.

TONY and Myrtle Watson never intended to buy a holiday home in Sri Lanka. They loved the island - its friendly people, its idyllic beauty - but had never considered making it a second home. Until, that is, a local family offered to sell them some land in Ahungalla, on Sri Lanka's south west coast.

"They were desperate for money and every day when we walked by them they would start again," recalls Myrtle, 60. "Eventually Tony asked him how much he wanted for it. It all started off as a bit of a joke but we ended up getting a house built there."

Tony, a garage owner, and Myrtle went ahead and had a beautiful three-bedroom house built on top of rocks, looking out to the crystal blue waters. It is those rocks which saved the house from being entirely destroyed when the Asian tsunami swelled up and came crashing into Sri Lanka's southern coastal strip last Boxing Day.

Sitting in the kitchen of her home in Frosterley, Weardale, Myrtle goes through some of the photographs taken of the devastation. Spread across her kitchen table are pictures of the piles of rubble which were left behind by the giant wave, and empty spaces where trees once stood.

"All of this went," she says, pointing to the perimeter wall of her once beautiful holiday home built eight years ago. "All the downstairs went and everything in it. The rocks really saved the house from being destroyed completely."

But the damage to their house pales into comparison compared with the damage the tsunami wreaked on the rest of south east Asia. The first the Watsons heard of it was in a panicked phone call from their friend and houseboy Priyantha to their Weardale home at 4.30am on Boxing Day.

"He was just frantic," recalls Myrtle. "He said 'the water's coming all through the house'. Then he started to cry and said he couldn't find his wife or children. When I saw the scenes later on television I thought the children had died, I really did."

A Swiss friend of the couple finally got through several hours later to say that Priyantha, his wife and three children were all safe. He described how the fishing people on the shoreline had seen their houses and livelihoods destroyed and how they had fled in terror as the water came crashing in. He also announced he had opened a bank account so that funds could be raised to help the people.

"I can't remember a disaster on that scale in my lifetime. We knew straightaway that we wanted to do something," says Myrtle, who used to work for the children's charity NSPCC as a fundraiser.

"We started off with a coffee morning in the village and we went around all our friends and their friends and everyone started giving all their Christmas presents to us. We had a cake stall and you should have seen some of the cakes people brought, it was amazing. We raised £5,000 and the response was unbelievable. I had stuff in my cellar and under my bed spilling out. So we had another coffee morning and a table top sale and raised another £5,000."

The first £5,000 raised by the Weardale Tsunami Relief Fund was used to help rebuild 30 homes which had been destroyed and to buy fishing nets and boats.

Tony, 55, and Myrtle flew out to Sri Lanka in January to see some of the damage caused to their home. They can recall seeing the rows of blue tents along the shoreline the refugees were living in, next to the piles of rubble and twisted metal which had once been homes.

"I think it was probably one of the most heartbreaking moments in my life," says Myrtle. "We knew a lot of the fishing people who lived in the shore so they had all been affected and they just wanted to tell us what had happened to them, what they had lost."

The couple went back in September, taking with them the second £5,000 they had raised. This time, they decided to ask the local people what they wanted to spend it on. They came across many living in wooden huts with no furniture and only bare essentials.

"The women wanted cupboards and wardrobes because they had nowhere to put their clothes, so we bought wardrobes for 14 families, and plastic chairs because they had nothing to sit on," says Myrtle. "Other families wanted fishing nets and another wanted utensils."

The couple also gave some of the money to a boy who needed an operation to enable him to walk. His father, a former taxi driver, had lost his livelihood when the hotel he worked for had been hit by the tsunami.

One of the highlights of the trip was taking 33 orphaned girls, some of whom had lost their parents in the disaster, to a fashion shop for the day where they were each given the equivalent of £17 to spend - enough to buy several items.

"It was such a joy to watch them, the little ones especially," says Myrtle. "They were trying the clothes on and laughing and some of them had those trainers on that light up when you walk. It was a lovely day.

"The nice part about it was that you could see what was happening with the money."

The Watsons' friend Priyantha, his wife Nona and children Isuru, Danny and Fredrika, found themselves homeless after the tsunami destroyed their house. Most people in their position were reliant on relatives who could sell them land to build on further inland, but Priyantha had no-one to turn to. So, Tony and Myrtle bought a small piece of land so they could build a home for him.

"It was literally like a jungle so it took some clearing and we started to put up a temporary house for him. They are living in our house for now," says Myrtle.

The wonderful thing, she says, is that they have been able to see for themselves how the money has helped people, it hasn't simply disappeared into a huge pot. Money still keeps coming in too - a friend put a cheque for £30 in her Christmas card - and they plan to hold other fundraising events. But they are also aware there are other needy causes in the dale.

"We live in a small community and we don't want to overload people," says Myrtle. "We'll just carry on, doing a bit at a time, helping where we can."

* Anyone wishing to donate to the Weardale Tsunami Relief Fund can contact the Watsons on (01388) 528496.

* In Monday's Northern Echo: the Durham University team rebuilding a village community.