A GROUP of Okehampton friends have smashed their target of raising £1,000 for the Exeter Leukaemia Fund in a charity rounders match in memory of their friend.

Friends Chris Drewe, Trevor Cousins, Pete Gross, Paul Penna, Lisa White, Martyn Letchford, Nick Jones, Steve Harris, Andy Gee and Andrew Luxton presented a cheque for £3,660.81 to the Exeter Leukaemia Fund (ELF) last week (September 29) which they raised in memory of their friend Neal Cousins who lost his battle to blood cancer 25 years ago.

Chris Drewe said: ‘We are delighted with the results. We never expected so much. At the time when we were getting it all together we were expecting at most a couple of thousand.’

Meanwhile Lisa White sent out her thanks to T&M supplies for providing the group with personalised shirts, Boringdon Park Golf Club for offering a round of golf as a raffle prize and AL Martin and Son Butchers for offering a week away in Cornwall to a lucky winner.

This is the first time in 15 years that the friends have run the event after deciding to restart the event in honour of the 25th anniversary of Neal’s death.