A few years ago, a disabled man in Didcot, Oxfordshire, was playing Scrabble over the Internet with a woman in Chicago. Suddenly he fell ill and collapsed. Just before passing out he was able to type the message "I’ve fallen and can’t move. Please get help for me."

The American woman raised the alarm in the USA but had no clear idea where the man was from. She knew only that his name was John Elliott and he was somewhere in the Cotswolds. Her message was passed on to British emergency services and Gloucestershire police made an appeal for help in locating Mr Elliott.

On hearing of the emergency, John Hawkins immediately started making enquiries. Checking a database of names and addresses, he tracked down Mr Elliott, rang him, and actually spoke to him before anyone else even knew where he was. John was then able to send the police round to him to help.

This was just one way that the agency has been able to help people over the years as well as tell their stories. Often, we are able to publicise appeals to re-unite long lost friends and relatives. It happened a couple of years ago when a woman from America rang John to ask for help locating a sister she had not seen for fifty years. The next day John’s story was in the local papers in Gloucestershire - and the day after that the missing sister made contact!