Annual thong run turns more heads

Last year the group raised £11,000 for charity

A group of men have completed an annual 18-mile (29km) charity run in Oxfordshire, dressed only in thongs.

The Didcot Thong Rangers took three hours and 30 minutes to finish the run from Sir Michael Sobell House in Headington to Didcot Hospital.

It was the sixth time the runners have taken to the streets to raise money for the Sobell House Hospice Charity.

Run organiser Clifford Oakes said the group liked to do something "a bit different" to attract more attention.

'Local celebrities'

The Didcot Thong Rangers have so far raised more than £25,000 for the Headington-based charity.

The money collected last November was used to buy a state-of-the-art Citroen Dispatch to transport wheelchair users to the hospice's day centre.

Each year the group adds a different feature to the run. In the past this has involved carrying telegraph poles, pushing wheel-barrows and dressing as convicts.

This time Mr Oakes pushed one of the runners, who had been covered in porridge, in a shopping trolley.

He told BBC News: "It really went well and according to plan. We really deliver an impact so we get a lot of money."

Robert Panting, of the Sobell House Hospice Charity, said: "It was an excellent day. We do hold the traffic up quite a bit. They've turned into local celebrities now."