A HEARTBROKEN widow's tears of sorrow have been turned to tears of joy by a Lancashire Evening Telegraph reader.

On Monday, we told how vandals had wrecked a bench given by Moira Thwaites in memory of her husband, Jim. The reader - a Blackburn man who wishes to remain anonymous - vowed to remedy the damage.

The vandals had used crowbars to smash the £400 mahogany bench in Standen Road, Clitheroe, a memorial to Mr Thwaites, a Clitheroe policemen.

He lost his fight against cancer in 1989. Mrs Thwaites said: "I wept and trembled when I saw the bench. The whole family looked after it.

"I paid for the bench because Jim and I used to regularly walk in the area. Pensioners use it.

"There is a plaque on it to show that it is a memorial bench but this did not stop the people who wrecked it ."

But her faith in human nature has been restored.

She wept and said: "It proves that there are good people out there. I can't believe this offer.

"The bench means an awful lot to us and for it to be fixed would be wonderful. I cannot thank the man enough."

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