Bedford to save dying children
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HALF THE children in the drought-shrivelled Sahel region of Upper Volta die of starvation or disease before they are five. Princess Anne, president of the Save the Children Fund, who saw the horrors of famine on her visit this year, pleaded for a suitable vehicle to transport vital supplies of millet and medicine.
J. T. Battenberg III, general manager of Bedford Commercial Vehicles, responded at once with a Bedford M-type 4x4, a model more readily associated with war and destruction than with life-saving. Inscribed, "To commemorate Princess Anne's visit to Upper Volta, 1984". It was delivered by an RAF Hercules transporter diverted from its normal route to the Falklands to touch down at Ougadougou, the capital of Upper Volta.
From there the Bedford, which has a two-year kit of spare parts, began a punishing 250-mile journey across desert to Sahnl.