People in Dymock found a fun way to say thank you to the Air Ambulance for its quick response when a villager collapsed of a heart attack in September.

The Dymock Fundraisers group dedicated the proceeds of Tuesday's pancake evening to the charity - a donation of £325.

Sixty local people had enormous fun at the parish hall and the amount raised was a record.

The pensioner who inspired the evening, David Brooke of Still House, was not able to attend, but had high praise for the helicopter that arrived so quickly to take him to Cheltenham General Hospital.

Mr Brooke, who is waiting to have two veins near his heart unblocked with surgical balloons, said: "They don't take a risk, they just rush you off. They were here before my wife put down the phone; in about ten minutes, which was fantastic."

Event organiser Sarah-Jane Williamson said that a village as comparatively rural as Dymock was in special need of the Air Ambulance.

She pointed out that the helicopter came to the village twice last autumn, once for Mr Brooke and on a second occasion when a building contractor fell off a roof.