THREE friends who call themselves the Travelling Grandmas have taken a 6,000-mile trip to the southern hemisphere to help some of the poorest children on the planet.

Honor Dines and Pamela Quinn, of Felixstowe, and Heather McRoberts, of Hadleigh, have travelled to Peru to work with street children.

The trio are based in the city of Cusco, staying in a youth hostel, going out each day to provide food and treats for the children.

Some of the youngsters are given access to school during the day, but when lessons are over they live on the streets and often get caught up in drug dealing or stealing just to survive.

Writing on their blog, Honor, Pamela and Heather say they have been suffering altitude sickness since they arrived last weekend and been kept awake by a cockerel with no sense of time.

As well as distributing food, they had taken some of the children go-karting, taken them to park and joined in a Hallowe’en party.

“We spent a whole afternoon with the girls and the two house mothers. We thought we might teach them to knit and crochet but it turns out they know much more than any of us do! We all had a lovely time, anyway,” they said.

It’s not all been hard work though, and the team has been able to enjoy a guided tour of the city and see some of the sights.

Previously they carried out some work in an orphanage in Nepal and decided to make Peru their second trip after hearing of terrible poverty affecting children.

They held a range of fundraising activities to pay for the trip.