A TEN-year-old from Haslemere is part of a team of more than 35 curtain makers, dressmakers and even a tutu maker from across the Herald area working hard to produce much-needed scrubs for NHS staff and care workers.

The group, led by Headley Down-based Mel Downing, of Melanie Downing Interiors, has to date delivered scrubs to Haslemere Hospital, Haslemere Healthcare Centre, Grayshott Surgery, Petersfield Surgery and the Royal Surrey, as well as Macmillan’s team of community nurses.

Finding the fabric has been a challenge, but a supplier of poly cotton has been sourced in Cornwall – and so far more than £5,000 has been raised to cover the cost of the materials online at https://tinyurl.com/wwyjq5b

The Markillie family from Haslemere are among those taking part, with mum Wilma, of Studio4 Soft Furnishing, enlisting the help of daughters Cerys, ten (both pictured), and Arwen, 14, with the stitching, and Jenny, 13, to bake cakes to keep them all going.

Mel told the Herald: “I’ve been established for 25 years – but all of a sudden work has died off, so a few of us in the area got together and decided to turn our hands to making scrubs instead.

“Each set of scrubs costs us £5 in fabric, so we set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for the materials and within a week we’ve raised more than £5,000.

“We’ve also amassed more than 35 volunteers in the past few days, and our youngest seamstresses is just ten. Everyone is scurrying around like crazy people.

“One of my business partners is a professional pattern cutter, and has cut out probably 200 sets of scrubs in the past three days!

“These are then being packaged up by my son and daughter and distributed at a safe distance to all the curtain makers before being sent on to the health service.”