Hundreds from the region still stranded by volcanic ash

A family of eight have been stranded in Puerto Rico until further notice at the close of what should have been a dream 50th anniversary cruise.

John and Joan Pitchers, from Coltishall, took their sons Martin, and Anthony, daughter-in laws Caroline and Helen, and grandchildren Freyja, 11, and Finn, aged three, on a luxury Caribbean cruise to celebrate 50 years of marriage.

The cruise started on April 5 in Puerto Rico, but ended suddenly on Friday when the family were left back where they started with no chance of flying home.

The family has been forced to pay $500 a night for three rooms with no prospect of compensation, and are not expecting to return home until tomorrow at the earliest.

In the meantime, they also face hefty medical bills to cover shortages in prescribed medication.

Mr Pitchers said: 'We have nine suitcases, eight pieces of hand luggage, one wheelchair, three crutches, one pushchair and eight people of varied mobility, so Gordon Brown's reported suggestion that we get ourselves to Madrid where we will be assisted home looks a bit daunting.'

Norfolk bowls star Jamie Chestney learnt yesterday that his once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia for the World Cup has been cancelled.

The World Cup will now get underway at Warilla in New South Wales tomorrow without any competitors from the United Kingdom.

'I was half expecting it, but it's still extremely disappointing,' said Mr Chestney, a 23-year-old electrician from Fakenham.

Chestney, his three England colleagues, and the teams from Scotland, Ireland and Wales should have flown out of Heathrow on Sunday, and were rebooked provisionally for a flight yesterday - but that, too, failed to get off the ground.

A grandmother and granddaughter trekked across Europe on five trains after getting stranded in Amsterdam for days.

School secretary Suzanne Vincent, 55, and her eight-year-old granddaughter, Jordon, were on their way home from visiting Thomas, their son and uncle respectively, when they got stranded changing at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on Thursday.

The family, from Lound, near Gorleston, felt lucky to find a scarce hotel room but after two nights with just the clothes on their back, as their luggage was stuck in transit, Ms Vincent made the decision to make the seven-hour journey to Calais across five different trains.

The grandmother and granddaughter arrived back in Dover late on Saturday night - but are still yet to see their luggage and do not know if they will be entitled to compensation.

A Norwich couple who were forced to live half a world from each other because of a complicated visa wrangle are now among the thousands of people who have been left stranded because of the volcanic ash flight ban.

Howard Lee and his wife Fiona Williamson are currently stuck in Malaysia and do not think they will be able to return to their Norwich home until the end of the month.

They had been due to fly home from Kuala Lumpur on Thursday after a three-week holiday visiting their family in Malaysia, but as they waited at the departure gate ready to board their KLM flight to Amsterdam they were told it had been cancelled.After spending a couple of nights in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, they have now travelled back to Mr Lee's parents' home in Ipoh, about a three hour drive from the capital city, where they will stay until they can get a flight back to the UK.

Both Mr Lee, an area sales executive for Just Eat, and Dr Williamson, 34, a history lecturer at the UEA, were due back at work on Monday.

Mr Lee, 27, said: 'We are quite fortunate because we can stay at my parents, but lots of people have been having to fork out for hotels. A lot of people are sleeping at the airport, and a lot of the hotels have hiked up the prices.

'The volcano is nobody's fault, but we are frustrated by the lack of information we have been given from the airline.'

Mr Lee is originally from Malaysia but has called Norfolk his home since 1995. Complications with his visa a couple of years ago meant he was forced to leave the UK, and Mr Lee and his English wife spent 14 months battling with red tape before officials would allow him to return to the UK to live in summer 2008.

As the chaos caused by the volcanic ash cloud shows no signs of abating, stranded travellers across Europe are turning to a south Norfolk company in a desperate bid to get home.

Hundreds of people have been logging on to website liftshare.com, based in Attleborough, which helps users organise car-sharing trips.

Members can use the free website to register where they want to go and search for other users with a vehicle who are making the same or similar route with whom they can hitch a ride.

On a normal Sunday it expects to have about 40 people enter their details, but last Sunday this figure shot up to 188 with many travellers pleading for help with long-distance journeys, including a trip from Cadiz in southern Spain to Rzeszow in Poland - almost 1,700 miles.

A Norwich-based holiday car hire firm says its business has been thrown into 'chaos' as its customers are unable to travel.

Enjoy Car Hire rents scores of cars every day to holidaymakers throughout Europe and as far away as Australia.

But business development manager Steve Dennis says trade has been cut by around a half as travellers are unable to fly and meet their rental contracts.

He said: 'The last four days have been a complete nightmare for us - it's chaotic and it's bad for businesses.'

Dereham's assistant mayor is currently stuck in China due to the volcanic ash flight ban.

Lynda Turner, who represents Toftwood on the town and district council, said yesterday: 'We were checked in to fly home, we watched our luggage being loaded, the crew boarded, we were at the gate, then, the luggage was unloaded, the crew came off and the word 'cancelled' showed. But we did not know why. Seven hours later we did.'

She added: 'Eventually we were allowed to leave the airport and are now in a hotel in Beijing, housed and fed, but so fed up. 'People are worried about their jobs, their children, their pets in kennels, let alone me who should be exchanging contracts on a house sale.'

Mrs Turner, who is having to get a new Chinese visa as hers has now expired, said she was with a group of 75 British people all trying to get home, including five people from Dereham, and that everybody was supporting each other.

'If we have to fly to Spain, Germany, America or wherever, we just want to get home,' she said.

Two teachers from Fakenham High School endured a torturous overland journey to make it back from Rome in time for the start of the new term.

Dave Eaves and Noel Patterson were in Italy researching a trip they had planned for their students. They heard nothing about the volcanic dust cloud until they arrived at Ciampino airport on Thursday afternoon to find all the flights were grounded.

Along with five trainee teachers who they met in the airline queue they tried - but failed - to hire a car. Instead, they booked hotel rooms and a 6am train ticket to Genoa.

From there they hoped to connect to Paris, but with no trains available they ended up on a four-hour rail journey to Nice, where they knew a sleeper train for the French capital was due to leave that night.

But a national rail strike scuppered those plans, and left them with the prospect of a 12-hour car journey to get closer to the channel train terminals.

Mr Eaves said: "This is where I started to lose it, but my fiancee Alice was on the phone and managed to get us two hire cars to Paris. It was a mammoth drive, during which Alice came up trumps again with two Eurostar tickets for Sunday.

"The next day when the train got to Folkestone, there was a huge sigh of relief. Nothing in the journey went right - it was trip full of dead ends and quick thinking. We didn't sleep for 30 hours."

Mr Eaves said the three-day trip cost the pair about 600 euros each.

Two teachers at Bignold Primary School in Norwich were hoping to get on a plane home today from San Francisco, where they have been stuck for a week.

Stephanie Moore, 26, and Emily Beck, 30, were looking forward to returning home to celebrate Norwich City's promotion but were stranded in the United States after their flight home last Wednesday was turned around in mid-air.

The pair have been put up in a hotel near the airport by British Airways, but were still worried last night that their flight would be cancelled and they would have to wait until April 29 for another flight.

Ms Moore said: 'We had a lovely 10 day break out here but we are ready to get home. We weren't anticipating and certainly can't afford a further week or more out here.'