I'D like to ask you to help a very worthwhile charity over Christmas - in a very simple way.

If you are given a new mobile phone for Christmas, please think about recycling your old one on behalf of the Arthritis Research Campaign.

I'd also like to encourage people at work or college to collect colleagues' phones and send them in - 20 phones will raise £100 for the charity's vital research programme.

When I learnt that more than a million adults suffer from arthritis, and around 12,000 children are affected, I was amazed.

Like many people I though arthritis was just something that came with old age.

The Arthritis Research Campaign raise funds in all sorts of ways and mobile phone recycling is a great of doing it. Around 15 million phones are changed every year in the UK and about 70 per cent can be recycled.

I need people to act now and help find the cure for this dreadful, crippling condition. Anyone can collect, whether at work, college, their club or pub.

You can visit http://www.arc.org.uk/help_us/phones/asp or phone 01246 541106 (24 hrs).

CLAIRE SWEENEY,

Arthritis Research Campaign,

St Mary's Gate,

Chesterfield,

Derbyshire.