The charity wanted to help as many youngsters as possible and decided to pay for one airfare for each of them.
“All of us who were involved in the Trust for Chernobyl Children had children of a similar age to those who were born at the time of the accident, so it very much hit home,” she said.
Brooks said radiation in the soil affected the food chain in Belarus after the disaster in 1986, and the children were “drastically affected”, with many undergoing cancer surgery.
Some of the children were as young as 10, she said, and it was a “huge deal” for them to leave home for a month to visit a strange country.
“There were two things that they particularly enjoyed – one was English ice cream and also the beach,” she remembered.
“They were all absolutely fascinated by seeing the sea, so we had some great trips to the beach. Belarus is a landlocked country so most of them had never even seen the sea.”