Boy takes on David Walliams character running challenge
A boy has pledged to run 1km a day in the 10 days before his tenth birthday wearing fancy dress to raise money for charity.
Sonny Wetherell has been dressing as characters from a David Walliams book to raise money for the Great North Air Ambulance to honour its "amazing work". He set an initial target of £100, and with one day still to go the total is more than £2,000. David Walliams has donated, and in a tweet urged people to support Sonny. The daily run, in the garden of the family home in Low Fell, Gateshead, is split into 100 x 10 metre lengths. Sonny said: "I wanted to do something for charity but I didn't want it to be plain and simple - I wanted it to be fun and exciting so I had something to look forward to. "On a walk with my family we were thinking about ideas and I put two fun things together: running and dressing up. "I love dressing up because you can pretend you are someone else and I love David Walliams books." He chose the Great North Air Ambulance after seeing on its website how fundraising was being affected by Covid-19, and they were doing "amazing work ... still saving lives in these horrible times". Follow BBC North East & Cumbria on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.