I HAVE been all over the world on my travels, but one thing that I find irritating is lugging a ton of exotic foreign change around in my pockets.

But all that lingering shrapnel, which ends up lurking in drawers or being stored in a jar, can now be put to good use.

I can take the coins or notes to one of the Cancer Research Campaign's foreign coin collection boxes, which are on display in branches of Boots the Chemist and the Campaign's charity shops nationwide.

Each note and coin is sorted and converted into sterling and last year this raised a massive £60,000. With your help the Cancer Research Campaign could do even better in 1997.

So whether you are going, or have been, to Malaga or Madras this year, don't let those foreign coins loiter when you get home. They could make a real contribution to the fight against cancer.

MICHAEL PALIN, Cancer Research Campaign, 10 Cambridge Terrace, London.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.