A SWINDON businessman has raised nearly £15,000 for the family of his late brother by running hundreds of kilometres after he passed away.

Mark Noble ran between five to 10 kilometres a day for 44 consecutive days in Swindon and his hometown of Fleet to raise the money after his brother Lee lost his fight with cancer on March 28.

Lee is survived by his partner Kremi, his four-year old daughter Gabi and his two-year old twin boys Francis and George.

Mark said: “Due to having a brain tumour for 10 years, Lee couldn’t get life insurance so I set out to raise as much money as possible to support his family.

“I thought that if I’m going to raise a significant amount of money, I needed to do something significant and beyond normal that made people go ‘wow’.”

Mark was already a keen fundraiser after running a half marathon and raising £3,000 for diabetes research charity JDRF in 2014.

The 47-year-old added: “Lee passed on a Tuesday and I started the challenge on the Thursday, it definitely helped me stay focused and stopped me from crumpling into a heap.

“Some of the runs were quite tough, especially on the funeral day itself, but having him in my memory was a driving force to help me get through it.”

Lee travelled the world working on cruise ships and touched the hearts of many people in several countries.

After Lee passed, Mark was astonished by the number of tributes and donations that poured in from across the globe.

He said: “Lee was away a lot of the time but I learned a lot about my brother from all the tributes saying what a wonderful, generous man he was, always smiling and laughing.”

“He always listened and helped, nothing was ever too much trouble.

“More than 200 people donated and it blew me away. I’m astounded by their generosity, it’s fantastic.”

Mark finished his final run on May 12 and the last donations trickled in on May 22, raising £14,850 altogether.

The money will go towards helping the family’s finances and some of it will be put into a trust for Lee’s children’s future.

Mark said: “It will make a big difference and I want to say a massive genuine heartfelt thank you to everybody, it’s very generous and heart-warming."

Mark commutes to Swindon for his day job as managing director of estate agents Castles Residential Sales & Lettings.