A WEST Somerset woman has come up with a unique fund-raising way of thanking hospital cancer specialists for saving her partner’s life.

Nigel Townley-Berry had been suffering from stage 3C cancer and was treated over the past two years in the Beacon Centre of Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton.

Remarkably, Mr Townley-Berry, of Stogursey is now cancer free and his delighted partner Elizabeth Edgar has been raising money in the past few weeks to support the cancer unit.

Ms Edgar thought up the idea of creating a ‘Christmas teddy bear tree’ and selling the bears with the money going to the Beacon Centre.

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Visitors admire the Christmas trees in St Andrew's Church, Stogursey. PHOTO: George Ody.

It proved so popular that her first teddy tree sold out when she put it on display in the centre for three weeks.

Ms Edgar then bought another frame to make a second one, which has been part of this year’s Christmas tree festival in her village’s St Andrew’s Church.

The tree contains 168 teddy bears, all of which were bought from the Cancer Research UK charity shop in Bridgwater.

Each bear contains a tag on which people who want to give it a ‘forever home’ can put their contact details, and sealed containers are available for donations.

Ms Edgar told the Free Press: “They have been selling very fast and there are hardly any left.

“We will not know how much has been raised until we take the containers to be emptied, but people have been stuffing £10 and £20 notes in them, so full that you cannot get any more in.”

Ms Edgar said Musgrove’s Beacon Centre had been ‘incredible over the past two years’ and had saved Mr Townley-Berry’s life.

She said: “They were fantastic and so it is our way of giving back to them.

“I hope to turn it into as big a charity as we can and put it into as many churches and centres as we can.

“We will also do an Easter one.”

The church Christmas tree festival featured more than 40 community-decorated entries, including from Stogursey’s Forget Me Not Cafe, the village twinning society, allotment holders Sarah Cole and Suzy Taylor, bellringers, the primary school, and an ‘If Lowry had painted a Nativity’ entry by Tim Kaye.