ALMOST 150 people gathered around the Market Cross in Guisborough on Sunday morning for an open-air service of prayers and hymns in support of Ukraine.

The service was led by Major Antony Mugford of the Guisborough Salvation Army, and the prayers were interspaced with hymns played by the Salvation Army Band. Many of those attending wore blue and yellow items of clothing and banners to symbolize the national flag of Ukraine. A collection was also made by supporters, which raised £918.76.

Major Mugford told the gathering: “We’re here for prayers and hymns for peace and the people of Ukraine and those displaced and having to leave. We want to show solidarity with the churches in Ukraine, to pray for peace with a collection of money for the Salvation Army in Ukraine to purchase food to feed the displaced people.”

The idea for the service came from Julie Hart, who has a shop in Chaloner Street and is also a town councillor. She said it came about due to "just watching the news and watching these people and having our hearts bleeding that we are powerless to help them".

She added: "The town’s absolutely got together, donating, donating, donating, all different things from sanitary products to toiletries, but they need to have cash because spending money over there is going to help them more. We’re not going to be paying for logistics to get it there.

"The Salvation Army is the institution in our town who do everything for Guisborough people and one phone call, a couple of hours later, the whole of the army dropped everything they were doing to help us getting this thing going today at short notice.

"I’m a bit overwhelmed how many people we have got here because this has only been done on social media in two days. I just hope we’ve made a lot of money and people have got a bit of comfort from this.”

Later Ms Hart’s grandchildren Hugo, Leo and Romeo Hart posed with Major Mugford to each display a blue and yellow banner in support of Ukraine.

The service was also attended by the Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner Steve Turner, who said: "I’m off to Poland on Thursday with a convoy of blankets and baby food and things to take to Wroclaw, just inside the Polish border, from there they’ll transfer it to the Poland/Ukraine border.”

Andrea Turner also attended to represent Simon Clarke MP, who was in London. Janice Middleton of Guisborough came to show her book of peace quilts, created in a schools peace project in 2012, to display a quilt made by the children of Pechersk School International, Kyiv.