LONG distance walker David Gibbard, who this summer raised nearly £6,000 for good causes, has thanked the people who supported him.

Mr Gibbard, 68, of Bloxham, collected £3,400 for breast cancer research in July by walking from Greatworth to Duns Tew and back.

The route was the one taken in the 1890s by Mr Gibbard's grandfather, farmworker David Isham, who made the 30-mile round trip every Sunday to see his wife-to-be Eleanor Jane Warwick-Mayo, who was in service as a cook at Duns Tew Manor.

Mr Gibbard has presented his cheque to the Churchill Hospital where a friend of Mr Gibbard was recently treated for breast cancer.

Mr Gibbard said: "I want to thank everyone for their support. I had a target of £1,000 in mind when I decided to do the walk, but the total reached £2,000, then £3,000, and the final tally is just amazing."

In August, Mr Gibbard was one of four people who walked 25 miles from Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital to the Horton in Banbury to raise funds and awareness of cutbacks to services.

More than £2,500 was raised then for the Save the Horton fighting fund. The money is being used to fund the costs of the campaign to prevent services at the Horton being downgraded.

Save the Horton action group chairman George Parish said: "We are grateful to Mr Gibbard. Thanks to him and his walking companions we have money in the bank."