A CHARITY set up by a former Redditch surgeon to help schoolchildren in Sierra Leone, will be holding a fundraising evening featuring a concert.

The Waterloo Schools Charity, formed by retired Alexandra Hospital surgeon Laurie Read, is helping to repair and rebuild two schools in Sierra Leone which were destroyed during a 12-year civil war.

In the past the charity has shipped three containers of donated books and school furniture out but there is still much more to be done.

Mr Read said: "The work so far is going very well, we have a lot of things that are happening at the moment.

"We are still building a laboratory so pupils can do science. We need to finish off the building and then we have to think about all the fittings and furnishings."

Mr Read had been a headteacher at Waterloo's Peninsular Secondary School more than 40 years ago before returning to Britain to study medicine.

He was an orthopaedic surgeon at Redditch's hospital in Woodrow Drive for almost 20 years and returned to Sierra Leone in 2003 when a declaration of peace conincided with his retirement.

The fundraising concert will feature Tarantara, a choir form the Stratford area who specialise in a wide variety of songs from old favourites to musical numbers.

The evening of entertainment will take place on Saturday, October 6 at Feckenham Church and starts at 7.30pm.

Tickets (which include wine and canapes) cost £8.50 and are available by calling 01386 793222.