A Keith farmer who braved bitter elements during a 24-hour charity plough was overwhelmed to learn his efforts raised £11,000 for a cancer charity close to his heart.
Ian McDonald, from Grange in Keith, took on the challenge with 23 friends at the end of February.
It was originally thought the group had raised around £4,000, but Cancer Research UK has now received a far greater sum following the challenge.
The 44 year-old from Keith decided to attempt the challenge after having so many friends and family members affected by cancer.
Mr McDonald said: “I’d like to thank everyone who helped make the event a success and to everyone who donated money. We’ve been planning the event for a while and I never could have imagined that we’d raise so much. We had some tough times throughout the night with the weather but we kept going”.
The winds were so strong during the night of the challenge that the portable toilet was blown over and banners blew away.
But they all kept ploughing.
Fiona Harvey, Cancer Research UK’s north east fundraising manager, said: “We were blown away by the success of the 24-hour ploughing challenge. It’s such a great challenge to raise vital funds for Cancer Research UK.”
Cancer Research UK spends over £31 million a year in Scotland on some of the UK’s leading scientific and clinical research. In Aberdeen, Cancer Research UK scientists are researching proteins in cells that make sure our DNA does not become damaged and is copied without mistakes when cells divide. Understanding how these proteins go wrong may help develop new ways to treat cancer in the future.