Town goes quackers

ST NEOTS experienced a duck invasion on Sunday when the river was filled with more than 10,000 yellow biodegradable ducks in the first ever Great Papworth Duck Race. The race attracted hundreds of spectators and raised more than £20,000 to pay for a new p

ST NEOTS experienced a duck invasion on Sunday when the river was filled with more than 10,000 yellow biodegradable ducks in the first ever Great Papworth Duck Race.

The race attracted hundreds of spectators and raised more than £20,000 to pay for a new piece of patient monitoring equipment for Papworth Hospital.

Fiona Cooper, head of fundraising at Papworth Hospital, said: "Papworth's first duck race was a tremendous success, thanks to the hard work of our fantastic volunteers.

"It was also great to see so many local families enjoying all the entertainment, including children's circus skills, bungee runs and trampolines, in the sunshine in the centre of St Neots."

The winning duck was number 3,389 which won the owner, a Mrs Jean A Colam of Ramsey, £1,000 to spend on garden furniture, donated by Mills and Reeve. The second prize of £750 in holiday vouchers, donated by Sealed Air Cryovac in St Neots, was won by duck number 2,158 which was Janet Woulds's of Bury St Edmunds. A plasma screen television, given by Malcoms estate agents, was won by duck number 2,819 for D Bultitude of Ipswich.

Mrs Cooper added: "We would like to thank St Neots firefighters who were an enormous help in organising the race and we are also very grateful to the many local pubs and restaurants for providing food, particularly the Bridge House in St Neots.

"The day had a serious purpose - to raise much-needed charitable funding to buy the latest monitoring equipment and we hope to be able to purchase at least one new state-of-the-art telemetric monitoring machine from the proceeds of this event."

INFORMATION: A full list of winners is available on www.papworth-hospital.org.uk/fundraising or on www.duckcentral.co.uk/papworth