EASTER may have come and gone but for a group of students the celebrations are still continuing after receiving a giant chocolate egg to feast on.

The sweet treat weighing 1kg was donated to the group at radio Swindon 105.5 by the Highworth and District Lions Club, after their hunt to find the mystery winner of the raffle prize never came forward to claim it.

The giant egg was the star attraction of the competition in March, which raised more than £100 for the Brighter Futures’ appeal to equip a new radiotherapy centre at Great Western Hospital.

Despite the best efforts of volunteer Christine Davis, who contacted the Adver and other media outlets to try and find the winner of ticket number 343, with the name of Cooper on, they were never found.

However, the egg is still going to a group of worthy recipients who are being trained in radio skills by station manager Shirley Ludford.

They were left with smiles on their faces when Christine and her husband Rodney visited the radio station on Monday bearing the gift.

Christine, 72, said: “We phoned Shirley Ludford and she put it on the website and announced it on the radio they we were looking for the winner. While I was speaking to her we talked about what I wanted to do. We did think about the children in the hospital but we knew they would have already had lots of eggs donated over Easter.

“So we thought perhaps we would do something completely different and donate it to the boys with autism who Shirley trains.

“They are children at heart and they loved it and it was so lovely to see how happy they were. One boy can’t eat chocolate but he still so excited about it. They were very adult about it and were going to share it.

“In my mind I was unhappy that we didn’t get to find the rightful owner, but then I saw the happiness on the boys' faces.”

Shirley Ludford, who has been teaching the students from Priory College different skills, said: “It was a great surprise for them, they were chuffed to bits.”

The lions club has also been busy doing other fundraising events and held a race night at St Michael’s Hall recently, which raised nearly £900 and is also going to the Brighter Futures’ £2.9m appeal.

The Specialist Satellite Radiotherapy Unit is now due to open its doors at the end of 2017.

But more than £2 million is still needed to equip the new suite, so fundraisers are being urged to continue their efforts in earnest.

The new facility will mean that patients from Swindon and the surrounding area will be able to receive vital treatment without having to travel over an hour to the nearest radiotherapy unit in Oxford.