A BAMBER Bridge, Preston, pensioner will be celebrating his 70th birthday with a splash - and it's all for a good cause.

Lively Ernest Young is doing a 5,000 metres swimathon in a bid to raise hundreds of pounds for charity.

The retired builder will be in the water for nearly two and a half hours to raise money for a cause close to his heart.

Ernest 's swim is on his birthday, April 15, which is also the start of National Parkinsons Disease Society Week.

He will be swimming to raise money for research into the disease, as it's a subject he knows a lot about. His wife suffers from it. He said: "Frances has suffered from it for five years. She isn't too bad at the moment, in fact she comes swimming and has a splash around herself.

"My mother also had it although she didn't suffer from it until she was 80. It's a lot easier to cope with these days, there are tablets to stabilise it."

Ernest is no stranger to fund-raising - five years ago he did a swimathon for the Royal Preston Hospital Scanner Appeal, but on that occasion he only had to swim 2,500 metres. This year he's doubled his target because he's done a lot more training.

He usually goes swimming for an hour every morning and when he isn't swimming he's working hard in his huge garden.

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