He did various courses of training, first as a biological laboratory technician in Germany, then specialising in the diagnosis of tropical diseases at The Swiss Tropical Institute in which he has a diploma.

But family misfortunes were to change the life of the couple.

Janet had returned to the UK to have her daughter but her own mother then had a stroke and died in 1980, and her father's own health and distress at the loss of his wife changed her plans to return to Africa.

She agreed to stay and look after her dad in East Ogwell, Newton Abbot, where the family used to run a poultry farm.

Janet said: "Very flippantly I said I would look after him. I said it so quickly, but it was hard as I was giving up a very good career, and it took me 12 months to come to terms with it."

She took a stall in Newton Abbot market selling home-made and home-grown food so her father could meet people of his own age but when EU red tape came in requiring refrigeration she decided to quit the business as it was not economically viable.

Janet was offered a place at St Loyes to retrain in computers and was given two week's work experience at Paignton Zoo to work in the accounts office, where she worked voluntarily for a year and was then offered a job which she still does today.

Janet said: "Peter fully understood that caring for parents was the priority as this is part of his culture."

"We discussed it fully and we both made sacrifices to this end. If I had returned to my job in Switzerland, after my five years sabbatical, I would have had ample opportunity and cash to visit Kenya with Mary."

"When my dad died in 1985, Mary was then 10 years old and well into her education and so we decided that it would be more beneficial to Mary if she and I remained in the UK."

"I have never calculated how much time we have spent together during the past 35 years but not enough."

"While Peter was training in Germany we saw each other for holidays every year and usually came to the UK.

"We were together living as a family when Peter was training and had a flat overlooking the River Rhine. I returned to the UK prior to my mum's stroke and Peter visited us for holidays until he returned to Kenya."

"I didn't see him for 15 years as neither of us had any money to pay for the fare. It was extremely hard, especially for Mary who grew up without her dad around."

"Peter sold some of his land to pay for the ticket to visit the UK in 2000. The same year Mary took a teaching post in Tanzania and I travelled to see her for Christmas."

"We travelled across East Africa by bus to Bumala where she met her grandmother and huge family for the first time and we were made aware of the dreadful situation of all the orphans."

"We returned the following year, 2002, for her grandmother's funeral. Peter and I agreed to personally support three orphans and make arrangements to do something about the plight of these children and people."

Rather than just set up an orphanage with all its costs and discriminations, they decided to form a surrogate family which aims to educate the children and provide them with life skills.

They have also deliberately kept the Bumala Trust small, limiting their support to just 50 children so they can keep control of costs and provide the best quality help they can.

They say trustees and supporters take nothing from fundraising, even paying from their own pockets for the costs of flights to Kenya when they visit to see the progress of the project for themselves.

Janet said: "Peter visited the UK in 2003 and helped with the fundraising for our new charity which was registered in November 2003."

"Since then I have visited Bumala at least once a year and he has visited the UK every year."

"We once calculated that the amount of time we spend together was probably more than the average couple who had a 'normal' life, as we are with each other all the time when we are together."

"This has been acceptable for the past few years but now we feel that it is time to live a 'normal' life."

"We are not getting any younger and want to enjoy our lives in peace and contentment."

"If we can raise enough funds to get the Bumala Trust self-sufficient and appoint suitable trustees and committee members to oversee the projects both in the UK and Bumala, we can gracefully retire. We'll wait and see," said Janet.

"Our love and relationship is very strong, and remembering that we are both from very different cultures it works very well. Peter is a very extraordinary bush African with a great love for his people. He has been the head of his clan for some years, a respected and responsible position given to him by his people."



Peter returned to Africa in 1980 and began work as a research assistant testing drugs for sleeping sickness until 1995.

He said: "I wanted to go back as my father was in business and my mother was old and she wanted my care."



"Janet was back in the UK while he worked with his family and was elected to be a director of a sugar farming business."

It was while he was moving around helping the sugar cane farmers that he came across a lot of children who were just sitting doing nothing.

Peter said: "I started inquiring why these children were not going to school, and yet there were many more schools than we had during my time."

"The answer I got was these were children whose parents were dead and nobody was doing anything about it."

"Some were going without food for a long time, which is why they were emaciated and dirty."

"I decided to communicate with Janet about it. She came to Kenya in 2001 and I told her about the problem, and these orphans who had nothing to eat and could not go to school.

She said "OK, let me go back and see what I can do."

"She came back to the UK and started to organise a few friends and then we started helping three children. We were helping these three single handedly, buying some food and clothes and a few things they needed and sending them to school."

Little did they realise what they had started would grow and grow.

Their daughter Mary, who now works in a language school in Totnes, went to teach in a school in the bush in Tanzania when she was 25.

In 2000, along with Janet, she was able to go to see her grandmother for the first time in Kenya.

Janet said: "We never had the money or the opportunity to do it earlier. Money doesn't mean an awful lot to me and still doesn't but you can't do much without it."

"We arrived in Bumala after travelling all day on bumpy roads and there she met her grandmother. They sat together in this mud hut just holding hands. It was unbelievable. Neither could speak the other's language. They just looked at each other but it was amazing to see them together and the feelings they shared."

Even now the memory brings tears to her eyes.

It was a year later Janet's mother-in-law died in Kenya aged over 100 and it was on Janet's return to Africa in 2002 for the funeral they decided to do something about the plight of the children.

Janet said: "From that moment on we worked with trustee Annie Wills in Paignton. We had to work very hard to get ourselves registered as a charity."

"There are about 500-plus orphans in that area and it just seemed like an impossible task to do anything to help them because where do you start?"

"Peter felt the most important thing was education, to get them educated so they could plough back their knowledge to other children."

Janet explained "the age range of pupils in a primary school is 5 to 20 years."

She said: "So if you can imagine a 20-year-old would start his education at a primary school and this man could be sitting with small children."

"But schooling is different there because they go by ability not age, so if you come into the school knowing nothing you start at the bottom and you have to work your way up and you don't progress class to class unless you can pass the exams."

"We personally helped three older children who went to secondary school."

"We have added to the numbers as the years have gone by. We registered as a charity in 2003. Then we had 10 children."

"We aim to take on 10 more children every year. We also took on more trustees, often through articles in the Herald Express, and we have had a lot of donations through those reports."

"When we registered as a charity we were asked if we were a religious group, and so we said no. We are Christian-based and we were told we could not be registered as a Christian organisation as we have to be able to help all different religions. We will help anyone in need. It is a work based on Christian principles of love."

"We find running the charity very rewarding but I am so happy that I don't have to choose, to select the children. That is done by the committee (Noah's Ark Orphans Self Help Group) of 12 men and women in Bumala. They choose the ones they think most need help."

As children begin to fend for themselves other youngsters are taken in.

Janet said: "Every Sunday they meet at Peter's farm where they are helping with the projects including a vegetable garden, and rearing piglets. They are learning to be happy to work. I am surprised at this but then I am a Westerner. The children love to do things for themselves, to help themselves."

"The future, and the whole idea of the trust, is to get these children and widows to be self sufficient."

"We are not getting younger but if they can develop these projects and they become successful they will become self sufficient and the money will go back into the children's education."

Peter added: "These children don't want to be called orphans. They want to be called boys and girls."

"At Christmas time there are about a hundred. They say to their friends 'we are going to a party' and their friends say they also want to go. So they just come, and often there are many more times the number of children than those we are just supporting."

"We don't chase them away. We just make more food."