THANK you for helping to make their day.Just five days into The Evening Star's Gifts for the Gulf initiative, essential morale-boosting supplies are already flooding in by the parcel-load for Britain's troops.

By Debbie Watson

THANK you for helping to make their day.

Just five days into The Evening Star's Gifts for the Gulf initiative, essential morale-boosting supplies are already flooding in by the parcel-load for Britain's troops.

Your generosity is set to significantly lift the spirits of our military men and women.

Each day, in the blistering heat of the desert, facing sand-storms, relentless dust and little or no respite, our troops are continuing their service objectives with a desperate longing for home.

Thousands of miles from their loved ones and unable to guarantee regular communication with those back home, they crave the smallest piece of their old desert-free life. Your generous gifts are essential to that.

They provide "an enormous morale boost", according to 3 Regiment Army Air Corps Unit Commander, Lieutenant Colonel George Butler.

"It's good that people in our area back home are thinking of us," he said.

FULL STORY IN TONIGHT'S STAR