A Royal British Legion Club with more than 500 members has been saved from closure at the 11th hour after a benefactor pledged more than £34,000.

The Marston RBL Club in Oxford faced being shut down by HM Revenue and Customs next week over a tax bill which had spiralled to £54,225.

Despite members raising £20,000 to service the debt, the club faced the axe as poor trading through the winter meant it was set to default on its next £5,000 repayment.

However, a club member, who wishes to remain anonymous, has made a five-year loan to the club at an interest rate of 6.89 per cent.

The move was celebrated by dozens of members at the Hadow Road club yesterday, which is described as a vital social hub for pensioners.

Harry Bridges, 88, a Second World War veteran, of Cromwell Close, in New Marston, said: “This club is very important, especially for the veterans who built it.”

Mr Bridges, a former Lance Corporal in the Royal Tank Regiment, has been a member of the RBL in Marston for 63 years and he and his wife Josie, 85, donated about £200 to try to help save it.

He added: “I am very, very glad it’s going to stay open. We do not go out a lot now and this is the one place we can go to meet friends.”

The club’s original premises in Old Marston were built by Second World War veterans in 1958, before it moved into a new building three years ago.

The rescue package helps save five jobs and comes after committee members rejected a proposal from Marston’s Brewery that if the brewers made a loan to the club, it would sell Marston beer.

Chairman Derrick Lancaster said: “We’re delighted at the fighting spirit of our members, for some of the older ones this is the only place you see them out.

“Next week we were expecting the taxman to come and close us down and that would have been it.

“We’re all happy we have got rid of the taxman but we have still got to work hard in future to bring the funds in.

“The club has been mismanaged for a lot of years but now we’re trying to manage it as a business.”

The club estimates that it has attracted about 30 new members since news broke about its financial difficulties in October.

It now needs to take about £700 a month to meet its loan repayments.

Life member Bob Avery, whose grandfather Arthur Gregory was a founder member of the club, gave £200 to save it.

Mr Avery, 64, of Watlington Road, Cowley, said: “This is fabulous news. There are pubs and clubs closing all over the place and I’d like to think we could draw a line under it now.

“This club has been a vital part of the community in Marston and was a place where both older and younger generations could come.”

Marston’s regional business development manager Steve Rollinson said: “We were happy to be given the opportunity to support such a prestigious club.

“Royal British Legion clubs have an emotive standing within their community and we’d like to have been a part of that but it wasn’t to be.”