CHARITY champion Ray Collins has now raised more than £30,000 for Wantage after completing a 24-hour non-stop workout at his gym.

The 41-year-old hopes to raise more than £5,000 after the endurance challenge last Friday and Saturday at TFD Health and Fitness gym on Grove Technology Park.

The cash will fund cancer care nurses in the town, a disability ambulance for Fitzwaryn School, and Charlton Day Centre.

Mr Collins, of Springfield Road, Wantage, who works at PB Ledbury’s, has now completed seven charity challenges.

He said: “It was tiring and quite gruelling, but you get through it. If it was not hard, everyone would do it.

“It is good to be challenged.”

He said the challenge became very difficult at just past the 12-hour mark — “You find it very hard to rationalise what you are doing. You just feel absolutely hollow inside and your brain just turns to mush and you cannot think straight.”

He is planning an Olympic-themed challenge next year.