CAKES were eaten across Swindon in the name of charity yesterday for Macmillan Cancer Support’s biggest fundraising event of the year.

Volunteers across the town were baking and brewing during this week to raise money for the charity, which has been asking for coffee and cake donations for 24 years.

Nationwide continued one of its longest-running charity connections by inviting employees to dress down alongside its coffee morning, held in the atrium at its Pipers Way headquarters.

The organisations have been working together for 21 years and held their biggest-ever event at the building society’s offices.

Stephen Uden, head of citizenship, said: “It’s one of the longest charity partnerships that Nationwide has had and this coffee morning is something which employees and members get involved in across the country.

“We are not actually sure why we started it. We have looked into where this partnership started all those years ago, but we really don’t know.

“You can get involved in this so easily, which is why it proves so popular. All you have got to do is make a cake, some tea and coffee.”

Mr Uden said £1,700 had been raised on the doors yesterday alone, through bucket donations made by those employees dressing down for the day. The firm as a whole raised £138,000 in 2013 and expect to beat that in 2014.

Gaynor Halls was the volunteer leading the fundraiser at St Peter’s Church in Penhill, where more than £200 was raised.

Greta Davies, 69, is Gaynor’s step-mother and a well-known figure at the church. She is undergoing chemotherapy and has been the inspiration for this year’s fundraising.

“We have been doing this for the last three years,” she said. “People are more generous when they know someone whose been affected, which in this case was Greta.

Meanwhile, at Penhill Library, between 15 and 20 people attended the coffee morning.

Library assistant Keith Ginger said: “It went really well and everyone enjoyed it.”