MUSIC lover Marion Wood has dedicated her spare time to helping Romanian orphans - at the age of 92.

The sight-impaired pensioner has busy needles knitting hats and scarves to send to the country's needy children.

They are delivered by Christmas Shoebox appeal organisers, and when they returned from a trip with photographs depicting the happy children wearing her accessories she was moved to tears and vowed to continue the task despite her handicap.

Marion started knitting after a stroke forced her to move from Leonard Court to Richmond House, Mitchell Street, Leigh. She had not done any since her son was young, but after a nurse cast on a few stitches for her she was off on the start of her charity mission.

Marion, the eldest and sole survivor of six children, said: "I kept on knitting. I didn't know what I was making but it turned into a scarf and then I started on hats and now I spend all my time making gifts for the orphans.

"When I have enough items they are collected by the Shoebox charity organisers in Liverpool and taken over to Romania to keep the little children warm in the freezing cold. I'm told they are really glad of them.

"I can't watch TV any more as looking up affects my eyes and I can't read, so as I love music I listen to lovely music on the radio, put my feet up and knit. It is so relaxing. People are wonderful in bringing me wool and I prefer double knitting."

But active Marion, who worked for many years at the Sovereign Toffee Works, Lowton, still visits her old pals at Leonard Court on three evenings a week and through she is in a wheelchair she is able to walk a little with the aid of a frame.

For over 30 years she played the piano at the Cook Street Salvation Army Hall and is saddened by its recent closure following a long struggle to keep afloat.

She said: "We are all upset about it but we have decided to stay friends together and have organised weekly meetings on Thursday afternoons in Leigh Baptist Church. I have been happy to play for them over the years.

"I am very fond of music I always have been. My dad insisted I practise and he'd have me on the organ at Lowton Independent Methodist Chapel - and he did.

The Salvation Army have had to put up with me all that time.

"I have always been used to helping other people, so the knitting makes me feel I am doing something worthwhile. I shall carry on as long as I can."