Jenny Ashman. Raised £1.7m for Midlands Air Ambulance

Former special education teacher Ashman, 74, got involved in fundraising 20 years ago when her son, one of the first air medics, pocketed £40 she made selling a pair of old chairs.

“When I asked for it back, he said ‘May I have it for my helicopter?’ I didn’t know how the helicopter was funded so said ‘Yes, all right’. From then on, anything I sold or got rid of, I sent the money to their office. Six months later, I was asked if I would go to a pub and collect money a couple of times a month. That was 20 years ago.

“One of the first events I went to speak at, was a working men’s club. From the back there was a shout ‘You must be Jenny from the chopper!’ I carry that with me everywhere. I say: ‘Hello everyone, I’m Jenny from the chopper.’ And it makes them laugh.

“I never dreamed of raising that amount of money. I write the letters. I turn up. I say ‘thank you’. I spend a lot of time in fields with traction engines, fun fairs and fetes and I wave a bucket. I’m on the ground collecting the pennies. And pennies fill buckets.

“I can’t arrange flowers, I can’t cook but I can talk a lot. I go to golf clubs, schools and senior citizens’ Sunshine Clubs.

“I share the work of the Air Ambulance – the human stories. If it’s a lot of men, they want me to talk about blood and guts but with the little ones I make it fun, particularly at nursery schools. I’ll take a red blanket and a splint, dress them up like patients and use a mini motorised helicopter. We go round in circles and go off to a pretend hospital.

“I do it because of the community and country folk. If you’re three miles away from the road there’s only one way out – that’s up.

“It’s not a question of the care being any better than the land people, it’s the speed. You can’t save them all but we give everyone a wonderful chance. When my end comes I’ll trundle off to the crematorium in the back of a red helicopter.”

Barbara Walmsley. Raised £403,000 for Oxfam

Barbara Walmsley, fasting for Oxfam.

A retired primary school teacher from Berkshire, Walmsley started fundraising for Oxfam at 16. At 77, she is now in her 61st year, but it has been in the last 30 that her endeavours have really taken off. She holds a weekend fast in October and rents out donated wedding dresses.

“I started a bridal gown hire service from our spare bedroom after one of my daughters got married. I wrote begging letters to bridal shops saying ‘Please send me your leftover stock’. I was very lucky – I had two large donations from two well-known bridal designers which got me going and I never looked back.

“When I started, I hired out a wedding dress for £25 and a bridesmaid’s dress for £13.50. By the time I’d finished, as prices went up and up, I hired out the majority – which were silk, designer and beautiful – for £299 and the bridesmaids’ dresses went up to £35 or £40. During those 11 years I raised £67,000.

“I’ve also been doing a fast every year – this year will be my 30th. I would sit at our local supermarket, and still do, for 13 hours on Friday, 12 on Saturday and seven on Sunday. I would have a label around my neck: ‘Do not feed, I’m fasting for Oxfam’. The first year, in 1985, I raised £313.13, last year it was just over £18,450. When it was the 20-year anniversary, I collected over £20,000.

“I have always had a coffee morning 10 days before the fast. I’ve been very fortunate that I have managed to get some real celebrities – like John Mortimer, Joanna Trollope and Claire Tomalin – to come along. I also work very, very hard on sponsorship. I spend months raising money from friends, and one or two firms sponsor me. I have over 400 sponsors now.

“Three and half years ago I had a heart attack and I was very ill. I was so cross. It was just coming up to the coffee morning/fast season, you see, and I was lying in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford directing my long-suffering friends and, bless them, they managed to hold it altogether and organise the coffee morning. I couldn’t fast, but my friends did shifts.

“The following year, after a triple bypass, I felt well and thought ‘I can do this again’. But three people said: ‘Look – if you fast, I won’t sponsor you, but if you don’t fast, I will sponsor you.’ I decided to give in gracefully.

“Now I have a cardboard model called ‘Barbara the Boxfam Lady’. I go to a supermarket and take Barbara, hang the label around her neck and I sit there with a tin and smile a lot.”

Colin and Alex Goodhind. Raised £30,000 for Dorothy House hospice

Colin Goodhind’s son Alex, 30, has been dressing their home in Melksham, Wiltshire with Christmas lights since 1995. The latest 180,000-bulb display attracted worldwide media attention with film crews coming from as far as Brazil. In 2006 the Goodhinds started collecting money from sightseers – raising £30,000.

“My wife died in late 2006, but Alex started doing Christmas display lights when he was 11. Since he was three he’s been interested in electrical things.

“The display takes between five and six weeks of continuous work. We’re talking 12-, 13- or 14-hour days. That’s his commitment to it.

“When his mum died, he decided that, as well as enjoying doing it, he wanted to give something back to the Dorothy House Hospice Care.

“We have a flashing board with a pipe running down it to collect the money but for the last few years – on several nights – we’ve had Santa, elves and Rudolf with collection buckets. That dramatically increases takings.

“This year, so far, we’ve raised £16,000 and still counting. It takes so long to count because it comes in all sorts of different forms.

“We never dreamed it would get to a global stage – 2012 was when it reached everywhere. This year we had American broadcaster ABC put it out on Good Morning America. We couldn’t believe it. Local BBC TV covered it in the morning and it then went international. We had a film guy from a Brazilian TV company. And it appeared in a colour supplement in Australia.

“It is fascinating to see the reaction people have when they see it. It’s quite a surreal experience.

“This year we got sponsorship which paid for the electricity. The bill’s going to be about £1,500. We are talking a lot of electricity.

“We had an industrial supply put in a few years ago – which involved digging up the drive and having a cable laid to the road.

“Most of the neighbours love it. We’ve got a fantastic road in terms of neighbours getting on with each other. A lot of them see that it’s good for the town and hospice – everybody knows the hospice. No doubt a few are irritated by a huge increase in traffic, but the majority are really supportive.”

Amy Hughes. Raised £56,000 for the Isabelle Lottie Foundation

Amy Hughes is running 53 marathons in 53 days to raise money for the Isabelle-Lottie Foundation. Photograph: Huw Davies/Border Counties Advertizer

Hughes, 26, a sports therapist, completed 53 marathons in 53 days in 53 different UK cities. She started on 6 August

2014 in Chester and ran her final marathon in Manchester on 27 September 2014. This year she’ll be running from her home town of Oswestry, Shropshire to London for the London Marathon.

“My plan has been to raise awareness, especially for young people, of the importance of keeping fit. I also wanted to raise money for a charity.

“I’m from a small town so I chose a local children’s brain tumour charity, The Isabelle Lottie Foundation. I know a relation of Izzy’s (who was diagnosed with a brain tumour nearly two years ago – she’s since been given the all-clear). Her parents set up the charity early this year to raise awareness of children who have brain tumours. It’s a small charity so I wanted to help them.

“The marathon schedule all looks really organised from the outside, but it wasn’t. It just fell into place. My friend’s mum booked all the hotels. We got a room and meal donated each night in each city. We managed to get a Sainsbury’s food card donated so we could buy lunch and snacks. I had a local company sponsor the fuel – we were driving my aunt’s campervan.

“I was aiming to raise £53,000 which I’ve hit and gone over target. It was all from donations as I went along – people hearing about it on social media and the news and stuff.

“We had a big celebration party – we did a raffle, had a band and hog roast. The charity night raised about £3,000.

“I had this idea for about a year and a half – and only decided to go for it in March 2014 and did it in August. During the whole thing we didn’t spend much money. But obviously I didn’t get paid for two months, as I’m self employed.

“I can’t believe it’s real, even though I’ve been finished for a while. It was actually, weird as it may sound, really good. I had a great time.”

Glyn Douglas. Raised £101,000 for Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Midlands Air Ambulance

Douglas, 38, from Staffordshire, lost his sister Lisa in 2012 after an accident in her home left her with severe burns. She died 12 days after being admitted to Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital. To thank the people who tried to save her, and in memory of his sister, he and a team of supporters undertook the National 3 Peaks Challenge with the aim of raising £5,000. But at the end of his efforts he was “totally shocked” to have amassed £101,000.

“Lisa was in her home and lighting her fire – a bioethanol burner –and we don’t know what happened. She was looked after at the scene by the local first responder – who tried to do what they could.

“It was the air ambulance that airlifted Lisa to hospital where she was in the burns unit for 12 days until she passed away. During that time, Lisa went through eight separate procedures – trying to repair the skin and they were doing skin grafts in an attempt to try to save her.

“During that time I said to my brother-in-law, Lisa’s husband, ‘When she gets through this and when she’s recovered, I want to thank the people who’ve saved her.’

“That didn’t happen. But these people did try to save her life, so I thought, if I could raise some money to give something back, that will save somebody, or numerous, people. I’ll feel like I’ve done something in Lisa’s memory. That’s why I decided on the 3 Peaks.

“There were 15 of us that did it within the 24 hours. It was such a tough challenge. People ask if I’ll ever do it again: never.

“When I started, my dad said: ‘Son, it’s an absolutely great idea, and very honourable, but a lot of people haven’t got money to give to charities’.

“When we realised we’d raised £101,000, it was quite shocking. The first part was raised by sponsorship through the JustGiving pages – people who were walking with me would go and get sponsorship from friends and colleagues.

“I’m a keen golfer and we organised three golfing days that raised £6,000, £8,000 and £5,000. My father’s company also donated £15,000. One of the large power stations I work for donated £7,000. And Uttoxeter Racecourse did a fundraising day dedicated to Lisa that generated £20,000.

“It was like running a second business – trying to promote it, keep the momentum going, organising accommodation, transport and equipment to do it. But it kept me focused.

“It was fantastic to raise that amount but it was quite a relief at the end for it to finish. It was closure.”

Tony Grant. Raised £46,000 for Cancer Research

Tony Grant’s tribute to his late wife. Photograph: PR

Grant, 63, a lawyer from Twickenham, and his two teenage daughters organised a fundraising concert in honour of his wife, Jain, who died 18 months ago from oesophageal cancer.

“Jain was diagnosed with cancer the day we found out she was pregnant with Jasmine (now 13). It was a bittersweet day. We had been living with cancer for quite a long time because it kept coming back.

“When Jain had cancer again in 2010, this time oesophageal cancer, I did a half marathon and raised about £16,000.

“We discussed [me raising money] before she died and she encouraged me to do whatever I thought was a good thing.

“She was very interested in music – so we held a concert in St Mary’s College, in Twickenham. We made about £15,000, selling tickets and raffle tickets. We had some bracelets made, which we sold.

“She was a singer, so I put together what she’d sung, had it remixed on a CD and sold a few. It was very successful.

“I even got £1,000 out of Barclays bank. I went into the bank on a Saturday to cash some cheques. They were being offish because the cheques had ‘Tony Grant’ on them and the name on my account is AB Grant. I got a bit shirty with the guy behind the counter.

“The manageress came out to calm me down a bit and when I told her what it was all about, she said Barclays has a ‘matching contributions’ scheme, and that they would be able to contribute another £1,000, which they did. I did a golf day – everybody who played was invited to make a donation of £100-£150 and that raised about £4,000.

“How do you raise money successfully? If you give people something, they are quite generous. I think it’s harder when it’s like sponsorship for running.

“If you ask someone ‘Will you pay £20 for a concert?’ they’re thinking that’s money well spent. Then they’ll pay on top of that for things like raffle tickets and blind auctions. A value exchange – money for something – is pretty good.

“The experience was cathartic. I spent a lot of time on it. I have to say, it distracted me. It was a way of getting some of the grief out of my system.

“You talk to others who have done a similar thing and a lot of it is about keeping yourself occupied and getting your focus on something else.

“I found that I could do that because it was connected to Jain. It was very emotional, but it was successful not only for just the fundraising, but in terms of a lot of very good friends sharing some memories.

“I felt I’d done something well, and it was appropriate and fitting.”