Don takes to skies for his 90th

Don Bird, who shares his birth year with the Queen and Sir David Attenborough, took a flight in a Spitfire place to mark his milestone last week - and he has already almost doubled his £500 fundraising target for the Cynthia Spencer Hospice in Northampton.

Speaking before his challenge, Don, who has volunteered at the hospice for many years, said: “I’ll be in the air for half an hour and will travel over the hospice, as well as over my home.

“I was training to be a navigator in World War II - and if peace hadn’t been made, I would have gone into battle - perhaps in a Spitfire, Planes have always fascinated me and now is my chance.”

People can still sponsor Don online at www.justgiving.com/Sue-Bird2

The Cynthia Spencer Hospice provides specialist palliative care services for south Northamptonshire. It provides inpatient care, outpatient services, home services and lymphoedema service and has a palliative care clinical nurse specialist service. The hospice also has two specialist consultants in palliative medicine, a team of doctors and specialist nurses working within the hospice and the community, as well as at Northampton General Hospital and Danetre Hospital in Daventry.

The cost of running the hospice is over £2.4 million, a large part of which comes from public fundraising and donations.

To find out more about the hospice, visit www.cynthiaspencer.org.uk and to find out about the charity that supports the hospice and how to help, visit www.cynthiaspencer.org.uk/about#hospice-charity