A SELFLESS couple who have fostered more than 100 children in their lifetime have added two young boys to their family.

Despite being aged in their seventies, Jack and Frances Tilley have got the fostering bug and have agreed to foster an eight-year-old boy and a 10-year-old boy.

The pair are carers with TACT - the country’s largest fostering and adoption charity - which helps to provide a family life for children who cannot live with their own parents.

Jack, 75, of Basildon, said: “We have been doing it for the last 23 years and we must have taken more than 100 children into foster care in that time.

“TACT said we’ve got these two boys and we were more than happy to take them in. That’s the way it works because we got referred by an agency.”

The couple, who have been married for 51 years, have been heavily involved with foster caring for more than two decades.

But their route into foster caring was thanks to an advertisement in a local newspaper.

“We got to a stage where our three children grew up and two had got married,” added Jack.

“One of our children had also gone off to college and we didn’t know whether to move abroad or what to do.

“We saw an advert in a local newspaper, when we were living in Newham, to become foster parents.

“We thought ‘why not?’ before doing the course and the rest is history.

“We carried on with our day jobs during that time.

“I worked for Newham Council, while my wife was a contract supervisor for Newham.”

Jack and Frances moved to south Essex after living in London’s East End.

And having originally organised foster caring through their local council, the move resulted in changes having to be made.

Jack confirmed: “We had been doing it through Tower Hamlets Council, but then our daughter moved to Benfleet.

“We then moved to Basildon to be near the grandchildren.

“We didn’t want to take the kids out of school and, while still doing the foster caring through Tower Hamlets Council, it took hours to take them to school.

“Since then we have been doing it through TACT.

“There is a really good support network at TACT and they visit us quite often.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve never had any problems with them at all and they have been absolutely fantastic.”

Frances, 71, added: “The one thing I like most about TACT is that they have a children’s worker, who helps to organise taking the kids away for a couple of days.

“I would definitely recommend TACT to anyone who was looking at foster caring.”

While the amount of children they have looked after has moved into three figures, Jack and Frances insist they will not be fostering any more children.

“This is going to be our last two foster children,” admitted Frances.

“We have said that before but then said okay when TACT have called us asking if we’d be willing to take in any more children.

“But this will be our last two, for sure.”