Worcester Ukulele Club and Pudsey Bear entertained shoppers and raised a magnificent £1,552 for Children in Need in a four-hour Uke-athon in the city centre.

The day was full of fun and laughter and many, many songs were played with passers-by singing along and dancing with Pudsey Bear.

On Friday, the morning of Children in Need Day about 20 players were in CrownGate Shopping Centre and in the afternoon another group of about 20 were in Worcester High Street.

The Mayor Worcester, Councillor Louis Stephen and his wife, the Mayoress, Mrs Katey Stephen, also joined the players as they played for shoppers who gave generously to the charity. The Mayor and Mayoress enjoyed a little ukulele strumming and singing along.

The couple made a special request to the strummers to play George Formby’s When I’m Cleaning Windows as the Mayoress had a treasured autograph of George Formby left to her by her great grandfather.

The Mayoress said: “My great aunt worked front of house in the Bolton theatre at this time and collected autographs of the music hall acts”.

Worcester Ukulele Club would like to thank the shoppers for their incredible generosity and the Mayor and Mayoress of Worcester for their support.

As the marathon ukulele session came to a close the collection buckets were rattling with the kind donations.

It took four hours to count the money kindly donated and Trevor Taylor, leader of the ukulele players for the event, said he was absolutely delighted with the amount raised and “many thanks to the great people of Worcester.”