A GAMER from Worcester organised a 24-hour Youtube marathon to raise money for Oscar.

Ian Simmonds, 50, said he decided to do something after seeing the news of Oscar's fight against Leukaemia.

He said: "I live in St Johns and have got two kids, one of whom went to Pitmaston a few years ago.

"I heard about the campaign for Oscar through reading the paper and talking with a few friends online, we decided we should do something." Mr Simmonds organised a 24-hour live stream of the online game World of Tanks: Blitz, starting last Friday, with several fellow Youtubers joining him for stints taking part.

According to Mr Simmonds, the response from the online community was excellent, saying: "The World of Tanks Community is quite a big group with millions of players worldwide, and the age range is perfect for the donations, being mainly between the ages of 17 and 30.

"It was incredible the support we got. We had people donating from all over the world including America, Australia and Asia.

"The company that makes the game got involved and donated prizes to the giveaway we did and it was really special to see how many people got involved.

"A special thanks goes to Meadsy69 - the Youtuber who let me use his channel for the live stream." Mr Simmonds set up a Justgiving page to take in the donations, which will then be sent to Oscar's family through the official Justgiving page set up by Sue Bladen of Pitmaston Primary.

The page has raised over £3,800 having originally had a £3,000 target.

Keeping going for 24 hours of non-stop gaming was a challenge, but Mr Simmonds says it was worth it, adding: "Because of Youtube's rules you can only live stream for 12 hours at a time so we had to swap over to the North American server halfway through, but we had some great help.

"We got two world champions from the World of Tanks Community to join in and kept bringing in new things to keep it fresh.

"It has been incredible to see the reach of the stream with this many people from all over the world joining in."