FROM skydiving to swimming with sharks, there appears to be nothing grandmother Trish Wagstaff will not try for charity.

The Appleton 80-year-old has raised more than £120,000 for Oxford’s Sobell House alone, a charity she has volunteered for over the past 25 years.

Now she is being honoured for services to charity with a British Empire Medal.

Mrs Wagstaff said: “I am absolutely overcome. I was completely shocked. I just sat down and thought ‘gosh, this is incredible’.

“I am absolutely stunned. It came right out of the blue. It is a great honour.”

Mrs Wagstaff was inspired to volunteer for Sobell House Hospice after her father Rowland Hugonin died from cancer on a hospital ward instead of a hospice.

She said: “My father died in a lot of pain on a hospital ward.

“Then long came hospices – it was so needed.”

Of volunteering at Sobell House at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital, she added: “I absolutely loved it.

“It was a wonderful atmosphere, people are so incredibly courageous we had such a wonderful, happy atmosphere.

“It was just like family.”

She finished volunteering there last year.

Mrs Wagstaff has also fundraised for Marie Curie Cancer Care, Army Benevolent Fund and Age UK, and she is about to start volunteering for Age UK project OxBEL (Oxfordshire Befriend End of Life).