A MUM-OF-TWO has set up a new website for children of serving military officers.

Lorraine Bilton, from Crossways, is launching Homefront Forces, a site that keeps families in touch while parents are deployed abroad.

Defence secretary Bob Ainsworth visited the family yesterday for private talks on the plan.

Mrs Bilton and her two children Benjamin, 10, and seven-year-old Amie are facing another long separation from dad Andy, 39, a petty officer in the Royal Navy.

He was deployed last week on HMS Ark Royal and will be away for eight months in America, Canada, and other secret locations.

Anxious about how her children would cope with the separation, Mrs Bilton and friend Anna Matthews came up with the idea of a website where families could send messages, upload photographs and send electronic greeting cards.

Mrs Bilton, 40, said: “There is nothing out there that meets the needs of children that is actually age appropriate and is safe and secure for serving personnel.

“Our unique website will be safe for children, secure and free and aims to provide a fun and caring place for families to maintain daily communication with their loved ones.”

They met yesterday with Mr Ainsworth and South Dorset MP Jim Knight to help move the project forward.

The two women have so far funded the website themselves and it went live in March, but they need financial backing, plus support from the Ministry of Defence, for it to start functioning.

Mrs Bilton, who works part-time for Parkinson’s UK, said: “We are very committed to finding the revenue necessary to ensure the success of this much needed service and we are looking for partners, gifts, advice and sponsorship to move the site forwards.

“We hope the meeting will give us some clarity about our wish to work with the MOD, because it needs to go through them to be a secure site. We are looking to see what Bob has got to say in relation to its potential.

“We feel this is a really positive step and only feel that good things can come out of it. This is another step forward for us in fulfilling our dream to provide this much-needed service for children, which we feel has been overlooked.”

They are also working with the Royal Naval and Marine Children’s Fund to kick-start the project and are currently registering as a Community Interested Company, a not-for-profit organisation that would give money back to service children’s groups.

Once up and running, each family will have its own password where they can communicate privately, and communal spaces will include games, competitions, and forums for children.

The website is at www.homefrontforces.com