A SEA of pink lit up the streets of Burnley and Pendle at midnight on Saturday as 2,000 women of all ages joined forces to raise almost £175,000 for people with cancer.
The first annual Pendleside Hospice Midnight Walk saw groups of women aged from 14 to their late 70s don flashing bunny ears and cowboy hats for the eight-mile hike from Burnley Football Club to Wavelengths Leisure Centre in Nelson and back.
The event had to be doubled in size after the hospice was inundated by people wanting to take part. Originally it was planned to limit the number of participants to 1,000.
Before embarking on the walk, women observed an emotional minute's silence at 11-30 p.m. as they remembered friends and relatives affected by the disease.
They were encouraged en-route by passing motorists who sounded their horns, residents sitting on garden walls holding banners and Burnley firefighters also showed their support by parking all their fire engines outside the station with lights flashing.
Mrs Kaye Bartle, hospice fund-raising manager, said the grand total of £174,580 made the Midnight Walk the hospice's biggest annual fund-raiser.
She said: "It was absolutely fantastic, it all went brilliantly. The atmosphere was buzzing. A lot of the women were walking in memory of friends or family and two girls were even walking in memory of Michael Jackson.
"It would be nice to make it a bit bigger next year and get 3,000 women walking.
"The first walkers arrived back at Turf Moor at 2-10 a.m. and I think everybody was back for 3-30 a.m. They were all clapped as they walked back by the stewards and volunteers and were given a medal and a certificate for taking part.
"I would like to thank everybody who was involved, the walkers, the volunteers and the police.
"Without their support we would not have been able to organise it."
