Two youngsters have completed a marathon fundraising trip to help raise cash for a new project aimed at helping ex-Services personnel start up in business.

Brothers Ethan and Elliott Smith took six days to trek along the Ridgeway national trail from Avebury in Wiltshire to their home town of Chinnor - a distance of more than 60 miles.

Ethan, 12, and 11-year-old Elliott raised £1,786 for the Hamilton Project, a new initiative that will provide people who have been invalided out of the armed services with the training and mentoring they need to start their own firm.

The Hamilton Project is named after Richard Hamilton, a family friend of the brothers, who died in an accident last year, aged 35.

Mr Hamilton trained in both law and medicine and served with the 21 SAS regiment for five years.

Elliott said: "We talked about Richard all the time on our walk.

"Although it was a tough challenge, there was no way we were going to let him down."

Each boy carried more than a quarter of their body weight (25lb) in water, camping equipment and provisions for the journey.

Younger brother Rohan, six, joined for the last few miles.

It is not the first time the boys have done a charity trek - last year they walked 50 miles from Stonehenge in Wiltshire to Poole Harbour in Dorset.

The Hamilton Project is run by Communities in Business Ltd (CiB), in association with Oxford Brookes University.

Little Milton-based CiB is a not-for-profit organisation that supports individuals who would otherwise find it difficult to start their own business, because of social disadvantage or disability.

The project was started by the boys' father, Dr Russell Smith, who runs Business Boffins, which supplies business advice to budding entrepreneurs.

CiB director Dr Tracey Carter said: "Altogether, the boys have raised almost £5,000 for us in the past 12 months, making them our largest fundraisers."