SEVERAL years ago I accompanied an aid worker to a gypsy camp in rural Bosnia, where people were so poor they had to rummage on rubbish tips for scraps.

Moving among the cramped shacks occupied by young families, we distributed items of clothing donated by Bradford churches and schools, and food we'd bought from a local supermarket.

Many children in the camp were barefoot, and I will never forget the smile that lit up a little boy's face when I kneeled down to put a pair of over-sized boots on his grubby feet. Most designer trainer-obsessed children his age wouldn't have been seen dead in these clunky, old-fashioned boots, but to him they were everything. He clomped about in them, clutching sweets I handed to him and his siblings.

His desperate mother held my hand tightly, grateful for the donations of toiletries and basic cooking items. At that moment I wanted to empty the entire contents of my handbag and tell her: "Here, take it."

Because that's how you feel when you encounter poverty like that. You want to give what you can to those stuck in that terrible cycle of having nothing.

Seeing children scratching around in poverty is particularly sickening. When I returned from Bosnia, I bristled with rage at the false modesty of celebrities claiming to do their bit for charity, while wearing designer shoes so eye-wateringly expensive they would've funded a new home for one of those gypsy families.

I later visited an orphanage in Ukraine, home to children from families too poor to look after them. Some had spent their young lives begging on the streets, others had been dumped at a local railway station and told to "find the orphanage". The children slept in rusty beds on grimy mattresses, in overcrowded dormitories. Their toilets were holes in the ground. The orphanage was trying to raise £20,000 for a new toilet and shower block - the cost of a day's shopping for some "humanitarian" A-listers.

For reasons I didn't really understand, these children were social outcasts, generally regarded as having mental disabilities, and were brushed under the carpet. Aged 17, with no educational qualifications, they were expected to leave the orphanage and find their own way in a society that ostracised them. They had, in short, no chance in life.

Yet most youngsters I met there were bright and inquisitive. If I'd been in a position to offer any of them a home, I would have done. The orphanage did its best to care for them but the brutal reality was that in just a few years, while still only teenagers, these bright youngsters would probably drift into prostitution, crime and addiction to get by.

It was a very different story at another orphanage I visited, a few miles away. This one was for younger children and was clean, light and spacious, with an ornate fountain in the garden and play areas filled with toys. Framed photos of smiling children adorned the walls, which I learned was for the benefit of wealthy visitors, mainly from America and European countries, keen to adopt an infant or two.

While I found it unsettling that conditions in these orphanages were so different, I knew that the children chosen for adoption were the lucky ones. Those left behind would later be moved to the other orphanage, with its filthy toilets and rusty beds.

This week's reported High Court decision allowing Madonna to adopt twin girls from a Malawi orphanage will no doubt be met with much sanctimonious handwringing in the media. I think she is to be applauded.

Surely, if a child has chance of a good life in another country, it's better than being stuck in care in a place offering little social welfare.

* ACCORDING to yet another study by people with too much time on their hands, more than one in 10 women expect a gift of £200 or more for Valentine’s Day.

Are they having a laugh? I’ll be lucky to get the last card left in the petrol station from my bloke. He once borrowed a pen from me to write my birthday card, which he then handed over with the ink still wet.

The aforementioned study also reveals that over half UK couples won’t be celebrating Valentine’s Day, blaming expense, commercialisation, work commitments and tiredness. At least they won’t be spending it sitting awkwardly over flickering candles at over-priced restaurant tables, running out of things to say to each other. There are 364 other days of the year for all that.

* WHEN a doe-eyed Amanda Barrie reclined in a bath of ass’s milk in Carry on Cleo, and a cute, curly-haired Paul Nicholas sang Grandma’s Party on Top of the Pops, neither imagined they’d end up on a TV show about a bunch of famous senior citizens trying out old age overseas.

BBC1’s The Real Marigold Hotel, exploring retirement options in India, was a surprise hit, and it’s back with a new series next week. Now in their 70s, these entertainers have stories to tell, and it’s touching to see them facing their twilight years with honesty and good humour.

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