A HUGELY successful mini-tour has led to local playwrights handing over a charity cheque for more than £450.

Profits from the recent run of Odd Productions Theatre Company's Unveiled Secrets benefitted Selkirk-based Children 1st.

Unveiled Secrets featured four plays from the pens of Anita John from Carlops and Melrose's Oliver Eade.

Mr Eade, who is a retired surgeon, believes the choice of charity was fitting.

He explained: "One of the plays tackles the disturbing revelation of historical child abuse and, through donations, the company wished to support the work being done by the charity as well as the adult peer support group Survivors Unite.

"In the play Give the Dog a Bone, based on a true story, a woman reveals how she had been sexually abused by their father to her twin sister.

"Their mother’s failure to protect her daughter through denial is all too common.

"Maternal involvement or complicity in childhood sexual abuse was described as The Last Taboo in the The Independent newspaper in 2009.

"Although ten years later nothing seems to have changed in society at large, Children 1st and Survivors Unite are now supporting adult sufferers of historical child abuse as well as protecting our children."

This week Olivia and Lara Ruiz Eade handed over the cheque for £466, on behalf of Anita and Oliver, to Amanda Erskine of Children 1st in Selkirk.