A tractor run, featuring dozens of gleaming vintage machines, which toured the villages of Buchan, has raised nearly £4,000 for life-saving emergency crews.
The Sandy Thain Memorial Tractor and Classic Vehicle Road Run is held every October.
This year, the convoy, which left Mr Thain’s home village of Strichen on the morning of Sunday, October 2, toured Fraserburgh, Sandhaven, Rosehearty, New Aberdour and New Pitsligo.
The event was launched by a local motoring group after Mr Thain died from the rare disease, amyloidosis, in 2014. He was aged 75.
Mr Thain’s family and the organisers of the road run have now presented cheques, worth a total of £3,700, to the Scottish Air Ambulance Service and Fraserburgh’s ambulance station.
Last night organiser Jane Ironside said: “Due to the generosity of many local businesses – too numerous to mention – donations by private individuals to the raffle, the raffle sellers, the tea ladies, the marshals and sponsorship paid to vehicle drivers, the sum of £3,700 was raised.
“Steve Munro, area service manager, was presented with a cheque for £2,000 for the Scottish Air Ambulance and James Hendry, station manager at Fraserburgh, was presented with a cheque for £1,700 for the benefit of Fraserburgh ambulance station patients and staff.”
She added that the total raised since the first memorial run in October 2014 exceeded £11,000.
The inaugural run amassed around £4,500 for the National Amyloidosis Centre at University College Hospital in London.
Mr Thain – a former military police officer and Army Cadet instructor – had been treated for the disease at the hospital, the only specialist centre of its kind in the UK.
Last year, £2,800 was presented to the Sandpiper Trust to help provide defibrillator cover for rural north-east communities.
The next road run will be held on Sunday, October 1. The proceeds will be donated to local cancer charities. For more information and for entry forms, contact sandysroadrun@gmail.com
