BOB and Ilse Splaine are off to a Buckingham Palace garden party next week.

The popular Atherton duo are with a civic party from Wigan Council, on which Bob is a Liberal Democrat member. But they could just as easily have been invited as a tribute to their charity work.

For the Atherton couple have now raised nearly £20,000 for Manchester's Christie Hospital, where Ilse's life was saved 15 years ago. They've just held their twelfth strawberry fayre for the specialist cancer centre and once again it was a very good year.

The fayre itself made £2,000 and that was coupled with £2,500 from a sponsored 10-mile walk from Leigh to Bolton by 68-year-old Ilse and nine friends.

"I'm lucky to be alive so I try to be as active as possible because I want to stay healthy," says German-born Ilse.

Advanced cancer

In the late 1980s she was given two months to live following surgery for advanced cancer of the abdomen and ovaries. But Bob asked for a second opinion and Ilse was referred to Christie's where a course of chemotherapy

cured her.

To show their gratitude, she and Bob have opened the garden of their Cumberland Road home every year since 1991 for a strawberry fayre whose proceeds are always for Christie's. From a small event initially, the fayre has expanded across two neighbouring gardens and now attracts about 500 visitors.

Neighbours and friends help on the day but the organisation of it remains a family concern. Bob and Ilse, their son Udo and grand-daughter Alex picked 160 lbs of strawberries, most of which were packed and sold. A further 50lbs were donated by Taylors fruiterers of Atherton.

Super cook Ilse also made 12 strawberry flans, two kiwi fruit flans and seven gateaux, malt loaves and gingerbread to sell on the stalls.

They will be part of a civic party accompanying the Mayor and Mayoress of Wigan, Cllr Wilf Brogan and his wife, Agnes.

Christie's regional appeals officer Jacky Plant said: "I'm delighted for Ilse and Bob. It is an honour they richly deserve and though not directly in recognition of their charity work, to us it reflects all they've done, and continue to do, for the Christie. They're a royal couple in their own right."