CORONATION Street's Spider helped get the pennies rolling at a charity ball raising funds for a children's charity.
The former star of the popular ITV soap opera, Martin Hancock, was special guest at the ball in aid of Unicef, which raises thousands of pounds every year for disadvantaged children around the world. And 200 guests at the Bannatyne Fitness charity ball, held in Darlington, dug deep to raise £10,000.
Bannatyne Fitness, which has centres across the North-East, adopted Unicef for its 2,000 charitable cause after the company's chairman, Darlington businessman Duncan Bannatyne, visited Romania in February and witnessed the plight of children there.
As a result, Mr Bannatyne has committed the business to raising £140,000 to pay for Unicef to train care workers to deal with the problems of children living on the streets and in orphanages.
Fiona Hesselden, head of national fundraising for Unicef, said: "Duncan Bannatyne has seen for himself the serious challenge charities like Unicef face in tackling the problem."
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