A MODEL maker is counting on the fun of the fair to draw crowds to a new exhibition raising cash for heart patients.

After spending five years creating a miniature working fairground, Peter Campbell is putting it on show in Tudhoe Community Centre next month.

The display, which will also include model railways and trucks, military figures, a steam engine, wood carvings, matchstick buildings, dolls house accessories and other miniatures, will help pay for coronary research at Newcastle's Freeman Hospital, where Mr Campbell has been a patient for more than 20 years.

It will be opened by Spennymoor's Mayor John Culine, a fairground operator and a prominent member of the Showmen's Guild.

Mr Campbell, 65, who had to give up his job as an electrical engineer because of ill-health, spent hours painstakingly constructing his models at his home in Attwood Terrace, Tudhoe, and intends eventually to hand it over to his grandson Joseph Smale, aged three.

He said: "I had a triple heart bypass in 1983 and I do what I can to raise money for the Freeman."

The exhibition is on Saturday October 9, from 1.30am to 5pm.