Whist enthusiast Eddie Levine, 82, has used his seven decades of card-playing experience to raise more than £1,000 for Help for Heroes.

Mr Levine, of Longleaze, Wootton Bassett, donated a cheque to the charity for £1,071 this week after organising a whist drive and raffle at the town’s Memorial Hall.

Mr Levine, whose brother Freddie died in the Second World War, said: “We see these poor souls coming through Wootton Bassett and I feel it is the least we can do.

“I thoroughly enjoyed doing the whist drive. Anything we could raise was better then nothing.

“I have been playing whist since I was ten. We used to pay a shilling to play then.”

Approximately £750 of the fundraising total was thanks to a raffle of a 14lb fruit cake, which was won by Beth Williamson, a member of Mr Levine’s bowls’ club in Tanners Close, where he plays whist regularly.

Other prizes in the raffle included two joints of eye rib of beef from Antony Drury from Tockenham and a £15 voucher from Crumps butchers in High Street.

The popular cake was made by former RAF chef Graham Smith, 69, who served in the military for 35 years, including at Brize Norton and Lyneham.

“This all came down to Eddie,” said Mr Smith, who lives off Old Malmesbury Road.

“I showed him a cake I had made and a year down the line he said ‘could you do me a cake for charity?’.

“The last one I made was about ten years ago but you don’t lose the skills; I was really happy with it.”