A CHARITY book created by a West Dorset couple is being released in time for Christmas to try and prove laughter is the best medicine.

Tracey and Simon West have compiled a list of jokes, one for each day of the year, and have called it 365 Silly Jokes for Kids as part of a fundraising drive for the charity Martha Care.

The charity was set up in 2006 after the death of seven-year-old Martha, who was the child of Mr and Mrs West’s friend Maggie Mickshik. Martha had been suffering from a brain tumour since her first birthday, and lost her battle in 2006.

Since then, the charity has provided a support worker to help families who are in the same position as the Mickshiks, and the book was created as the charity try to raise £40,000 per year to keep the service going.

Containing hundreds of jokes, the book includes well-known rib ticklers plus some original material to try and keep the children chuckling throughout the year.

Mrs West, who compiled the list of jokes, said: “It was such fun to work on the joke book although I didn’t giggle much at them until I'd finished. It took around 200 hours to pull it all together and lay everything out and to draw the excellent cover and Simon to draw the cartoons in it.

“Our hope is that goes a long way to ensuring the Martha Care Support Worker in the Bristol Royal Children's Hospital is there for a very long time and if fundraising goes exceptionally well, that they might be able to employ more to work in other south western children’s wards too, which would be amazing.”

Mr West, founder of Magic Oxygen Publishing in Lyme Regis, created the images that accompany the jokes.

He said: “Martha loved jokes, this is a fitting celebration of her life, the things she adored and a great cause.”

For more information, contact Simon West at magicoxygen.co. uk.

The book is currently available from Serendip in the town.

Some of the jokes included in the list are:

- I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger and bigger... then it hit me

- What do cats like to eat on a hot day: Mice cream 

-  What is a spider’s favourite day dream? To be on the world wide web