A PRIMARY school have planted purple bulbs in a wood to honour a charity which is trying to eradicate a deadly disease.

Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 pupils at Dane Ghyll primary school ventured to How Tun Woods yesterday afternoon to scatter 3,000 purple crocus bulbs to help raise awareness of Polio.

The children worked with Frank Randall from Furness Rotary Club to plant the bulbs as part of the Purple4Polio which wants to raise £3bn by 2018 to help wipe out a disease which can cause paralysis and sometimes death, particularly in children under five.

Louise Postlethwaite, who is the school's chief gardener, said: "When Frank approached me in respect of getting the children involved in this event I thought it was a wonderful idea.

"Today the children have used their gardening skills to help others and also they have learnt about the work the Rotary club do and also about polio.

"The bulbs we planted will be appreciated by visitors to the woods for many years to come."

The youngsters involved will all get certificates commending them for their effort in planting the bulbs and Miss Postlethwaite is planning to plant more purple flowers in the school's ever growing vegetable garden.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative campaign was launched by Rotary International and billionaire Bill Gates to help combat the disease.

Headteacher Garry Schofield believes that the children will have appreciated being part of Mr Gates' legacy.

He said: "The idea of the children planting for the future generations and as a reminder of the wonderful work that rotary take part in ,really turned on the children's minds to the facts about how change can be made.

"All the children were so pleased to think that they could actually say that they had worked with Bill Gates. It was a great afternoon of fun."