LAW graduate Carrie Eccles has taken time out to work as a volunteer with The Mission to Seafarers in France.

Carrie, 21, from Isleworth Drive, Chorley, is a port chaplain's assistant in Dunkerque and her duties include helping seafarers with problems arising through injustice and hardship, such as complaints over pay and conditions.

Due to work there for a year, she said: "I am really enjoying the work. It's miles away from a law degree but my studies do have a part to play.

"There are many issues involved, such as seafarers' legal rights, and it's always interesting."

Carrie is part of the Anglican Church Mission's network of chaplains, staff and volunteers who care for the practical and spiritual needs of seafarers of all races and creeds in 300 ports worldwide.

They visit seafarers on their ships, offering friendship and a welcome to the Mission's seafarers' centres. These provide rest and relaxation, a chapel or quiet room, a shop, and telephone and email facilities.

Carrie is working with Fleetwood-born port chaplain The Reverend Tony Rimmer, who is a former team vicar at St George's Church, Preston, and Tom Lloyd, another volunteer chaplain's assistant.

Carrie is a former pupil of Holy Cross RC High School, Chorley, and also attended Cardinal Newman Sixth Form College, Preston, and the University of Liverpool.

As a volunteer with Liverpool Student Community Action, she helped run a soup kitchen for the homeless.

Her father, Bill Eccles, is a teacher of technology and her mother, Wyn, is a former primary school teacher. She has two sisters, Jayne and Rachel.