NINE-YEAR-OLD Katie is a very clever tomboy. Anna, seven, is into ballet and fairies and, at four, little Ellie May, with her big brown eyes, is simply a heartbreaker. They're remarkable little girls, but this is no ordinary family.

Katie, Anna and Ellie May were abandoned by their birth parents to life in a Philippine orphanage and were all classed as 'special needs' children. Their future looked grim, but then Steve and Lydia Boorman adopted them and, with love and stimulation, they were transformed into the gorgeous little girls we see today.

"I'm so proud of them," says Lydia, 40. "They've achieved so much and it's a privilege to have been able to help them along."

Lydia suffered from an hereditary childhood illness called Neutropenia, which meant she spent some of her early years weak or fighting off infections.

"When Steve and I got married, we'd already decided that we would adopt, rather than risk passing the illness on to our own children," she says. "We wanted to give children from a developing country a chance and we chose the Philippines because it's a family orientated country and also a Christian country.

"There's an awful lot of abandonment in the Philippines through ignorance and because of poverty," explains Steve, 40, a shepherd. "You have a child out of wedlock - or one that's less than perfect - and it can ruin the rest of your life."

"All our three children were classed as special needs to some degree," explains Lydia. "But what's special needs over there might be an easily corrected problem over here. And on top of that, once they get one-to-one care, they improve really quickly."

Steve and Lydia, who live between Dorchester and Blandford in the Dorset countryside, married in 1985. By 1990, the couple were ready to start the adoption process. They knew little or nothing about what lay ahead, a fact Steve now admits was a blessing at the time.

"We had no idea what a long haul it was and how emotionally challenging it would be," he says.

"It's quicker nowadays, but when we first started out we felt as if we were always having to push things along. When we applied to adopt Anna, the home study alone took 18 months."

Then Lydia and Steve had to undergo another approval process in the Philippines. They went on a waiting list while their details were circulated to all the children's homes in the country. After that, it was simply a waiting game.

"We soon realised that everyone wants a healthy girl aged up to one year," says Lydia. "So we said we'd take a girl up to the age of four with minor special needs."

The couple were approved within nine months. But it takes two years for the Philippines government to accept potential parents from the UK, so it wasn't until 1994 that the couple received the news they'd longed for.

"I cried when I heard that we'd been matched with a child," says Lydia. "We were sent some paperwork that contained one photograph of this little tot and we fell in love with Katie there and then. Some people at the orphanage kindly sent more pictures and we pored over them every day. We collected cots, clothes and toys while we waited. We were desperate to see her."

Finally, in July 1994, Steve and Lydia flew out to Manila.

"The first sight we had of Katie was a little bundle fast asleep in her cot," remembers Lydia. "We were exhausted and dirty but none of that mattered!

"I was just gone, blown away," says Steve, shaking his head at the memory. "This was my daughter. It seemed so right, as if she'd always been with me. I fell in love completely."

Katie, meanwhile, seemed happy to accept Steve and Lydia as Mummy and Daddy.

"On the second day, she came to our hotel and she just loved being with us," says Steve. "She lapped up all the cuddles and fuss and we spent a lot of time just sitting playing with her."

For Lydia, the bonding process took a little longer. "Looking back, I think the whole thing was such a shock," she says. "For the previous four years, our entire lives had revolved around this moment. I did mountains of paperwork and took a job to pay for it all. We even did without holidays so we could have our little girl.

"When she finally arrived I wondered how I'd cope. It wasn't until she was at home with me and starting to get into a normal daily routine that I felt a lot more secure."

Back in England, there was a 'welcome home' banner waiting for them outside their home and support from friends, relatives and health care professionals.

Katie's special needs - mainly caused by being born six weeks premature - were indeed very minor. Within a year she had caught up with her peers.

"We didn't have any problems with her at all," remembers Steve. "She wasn't frightened or anything. She loved watching TV, enjoyed having baths and adored being out in the open.

"I bought a small backpack and she and I would walk for miles. She'd feel leaves and look at the trees with wonder. It was as if she'd just been released from captivity."

It took a year for Katie's adoption to be legalised and then, in 1998, the couple adopted Anna, a three-year-old who was blind in one eye, partially sighted in the other and had a webbed left hand and feet.

To join her two big sisters, last year they brought home Ellie May, who has a congenital facial deformity and some verbal communication problems.

"With both of the other girls I was worried about whether we could cope, but we spoke to doctors in the UK who said they could help and they've been wonderful with us," says Lydia.

"Anna has had her fingers and toes separated and Ellie May will have an operation which will transform her face. Both have had help with their intellectual development and now Anna is only six months behind at school!

"My gut feeling is that Ellie May is going to be just fine, too," says Steve. "If she'd stayed in the Philippines, it's likely she could have ended up in a mental institution. And look how bright and happy she is now. It just doesn't bear thinking about.

"We want people to think about adopting children from abroad, even if they do have special needs," says Lydia.

"You can do so much for them and it's truly rewarding. We're profoundly grateful that we've been given this chance."