THERE is a touching story behind the Japanese custom of folding a thousand paper cranes (‘Cubs raise £1,000’, 10th July).

Sadako Sasaki was two years old and living in Hiroshima when the first atomic bomb was dropped and this led to her to developing leukaemia 10 years later.

When she was in hospital a friend bought her an origami bird, the Japanese crane, and told her the ancient legend that cranes live a thousand years and that a sick person who folds a thousand cranes will become well again.

In one version of the story Sadako is said to have folded as many cranes as she was able but only managed 644 before she weakened and died aged twelve in 1955, her classmates completing the rest in her honour.

However, her family claim that she actually folded 1,300.

In the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park there is a statue of Sadako holding a crane which was raised as a memorial to her and all the children who had died from the effects of the atomic bomb.

Each year on Peace Day, August 6, thousands of paper cranes are placed beneath Sadako’s statue.

Anthony Braime, Bishops Way, Andover