A STAGGERING £1,700 was raised at a cake sale held for Ukraine in Northlew on Saturday, with the figure still on the rise as donations continue to pour in.

Martin Perry organised the event at the Chapel Hall with fellow villager Tracey Barratt.

He said: ‘In our wildest dreams we had hoped to make £1,000 but to get to nearly £2,000 was remarkable, just for a sale of cakes and a raffle. We had a lot of donations and people are very very generous, it was really great.’

Among the donations were the contents of money boxes, owned by Ben and Toby Marshall-Rundle, eight-year-old twin brothers.

‘That was really sweet, we weren’t expecting it,’ said Martin.‘We didn’t know they were coming and in they strolled and put the money in the pot. They are a well-known local farming family.’

The Northlew Chapel also handed over their profit from the coffee sales.

The successful coffee morning came as Martin heard good news from his Ukrainian-born partner Viktor Ieromin, who has been to Poland to rescue his Ukrainian grandmother to bring her to stay with Martin in Northlew.

Viktor flew out to Poland from Luton last Thursday to try and rescue his grandmother, Halyna who lives in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

Martin said: ‘The local church arranged for her to be taken to a train and she arrived in Chelm, Poland on Friday. She was very distressed and exhausted and unable to sleep without hearing the bombs and blasts in her head.’

Viktor and his grandmother are currently staying in a flat in Rzeszow in Poland kindly lent to them by a Polish man he met on the flight out.

Martin added: ‘All the paperwork has been completed but once again it is the problems with the UK Home Office holding things up.

‘They hope to fly back to the UK on Thursday or Saturday this week. It will be wonderful if it is Thursday but I think it will probably be Saturday. Then after a few days in London, Viktor with Halyna will come to Devon.

‘I have spoken to Okehampton Medical Centre and they have said they can provide translation services for her because she was due to have her knees operating on. She is in considerable pain at the moment.

‘Viktor will come down with her initially to settle her. I hope we get on! It is a bit of a walk in the dark. I will be arming myself with Google translate.’