PEARL Livett never imagined the charity she set up to make small donations to cancer research would become the money-spinner it has.

But now, almost 20 years after the Friends of Kennington Cancer Fund held its first wine and cheese evening, the small charity has raised more than £250,000 for the Medical Oncology Unit at the Oxford Cancer Centre.

Pensioner Mrs Livett, who lost her husband Douglas to the disease in 1991, last week handed over the most recent cheque for £10,000 from this year’s fundraising to Prof Adrian Harris, who set up the cancer unit at the hospital in 1988.

Mrs Livett said: “In our wildest dreams we never thought we would ever reach the point where we would be able to say we have raised over a quarter of a million pounds for the research Prof Harris carries out. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

Mrs Livett started raising money for the unit with her husband Douglas after he was diagnosed with cancer in 1987.

The couple had at first donated the money, raised from wine and cheese evenings and village fetes, to the children’s leukaemia ward at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

When they heard about a new oncology department being built at the Churchill Hospital, they decided to refocus their efforts.

Sadly Mr Livett’s cancer returned and he died in 1991.

But Mrs Livett and her team of volunteers continued fundraising in his name and now the Oxford Cancer Centre has opened at the Churchill site, all cheques are redirected to the Medical Oncology Unit there.

The group holds shoe sales, quizzes, and fetes, and is helped by other keen volunteers who hold charity golf tournaments and take part in fundraising runs.

Prof Harris said: “The funds from Kennington Cancer Fund have been critical to pump-prime research and allow us to test out new ideas rapidly.

“Among these has been the development of a vaccine for malignant melanoma.

“The first studies were done from funding from the Friends of Kennington Cancer Fund, this has gone into international trials.

“Our team is grateful for this support, particularly because we can offer the residents of Oxfordshire these new treatments many years before they are available elsewhere.”

Mrs Livett said: “This is just a milestone.

“Obviously we will continue doing what we can while we are still able.

“It has become a way of life now.We’re not going to give up.”

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk