GRANDMOTHER Mary Hodgkiss from Skipton completed the Yorkshire 10 Mile run for children’s cancer charity Candlelighters, smashing her original fundraising target several times over.

64 year old Mary entered the annual York based run to raise money for the charity after her five year old granddaughter, Maddie Rae Jameson, who with her family, mum, Rachel, dad, Liam and sister, also lives in Skipton, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in the summer.

Mary created a Justgiving page and set herself a target of £500, but was amazed when donations and sponsorship added up to £4,877.49.

“I set up a Justgiving page and people took sponsor forms, and people also just came to the house and gave me money, everyone was so generous,” she said.

The run itself took place in October, on a wet and windy day, on a route around the city itself and surrounding villages.

No stranger to running, Mary has in the past taken part in the Great North Run, and is a member of the Keighley and Craven Running Club, but for some time has run shorter distances of around five miles.

Shortly before the race itself, she also hurt one of her ankles and had to run with it strapped up.

“Even thought I had fallen a couple of weeks earlier and had a strapped up ankle, I was determined to do it. The weather was atrocious too, it was very wet and windy, and I was wet from the start to the finish,” she said.

Greeting Mary at the end of the race, which she completed in a respectful time of one hour and 59 minutes, was her granddaughter.

Maddie, a pupil at Christ Church School, Skipton is undergoing treatment at Leeds General Infirmary, where people from the Candlelighters charity are on hand to offer support and advice to families. She has just returned to school after a period of intensive treatment and will shortly start a further course of 18 months maintenance treatment, which should come to an end in April, 2020.

“She was very tired after the intensive treatment, but she has just gone back to school, and always has a smile on her face,” said Mary.