A WOMAN has raised enough money to buy her village a defibrillator after staging an 87-mile bike ride in her father’s memory.

Sally Holmes, of Burn, near Selby, rode with her husband Andrew to her parents' first home in Hull and back again in one day.

She raised £3,600, enough for villagers to install the life-saving equipment in a safe and accessible location, with a rota of volunteers being trained in how to use it if someone suffers a heart attack.

Sally Holmes, 54, organised the fund-raising as a tribute to her late father, who died just before Christmas.

She said: "The loss of my dad was very sudden. Mum called us in the middle of the night and we rushed to their aid, using the defibrillator available in Hambleton.

"We know now it couldn’t actually have helped him, but at the time it gave us hope.

“That tragic night intensified our desire to get a defibrillator for Burn, so a plan was hatched to raise funds.

“It started with some really big ideas – we had thoughts of cycling the length of Wales or island hopping the Outer Hebrides, but Covid-19 put a stop to those plans!"

She said a recent incident in Burn, thankfully with a happier ending, had fuelled her determination and also encouraged the village to support them.

“We decided to go for “The 87 Challenge” as my dad would have been 87 on July 1, my mum and dad’s first home in Hull was at number 87 and a round trip from Burn to that house is almost 87 miles exactly," she said.

"My dad was also a keen cyclist in his younger days, so it seemed the perfect way to remember him and raise the funds.”

The couple were waved off at 6.30am last Wednesday and then welcomed back home at around 3pm the same day by a group of family, friends and villagers – all at a safe social distance.