Widows and widowers of those buried at Clayton Wood helped raise £317 for Macmillan Cancer Support when they took part in the World's Biggest Coffee Morning.

Many of those buried at the natural burial ground passed away due to cancer.

The wood's employees organised the coffee morning so they could support a cancer charity while at work and those who come to the wood to visit their loved ones could also be involved.

Eric Pool, 81, of Orchard Close, Haywards Heath, whose wife's ashes were to be interred in the wood, said: “I am supporting the Macmillan coffee morning as when my wife was ill a Macmillan nurse came to my home.”

To support the bereaved a counsellor from The Bereavement Support Centre in Portsmouth had come specially.

Janet Quintava. 57, said: “I like to support events like this. It gives anyone who comes after a bereavement an opportunity to find out information that may support them.”

Around 40 to 50 people came and enjoyed the coffee, tea and delicious cakes.

These included a strawberry cake surrounded by chocolate fingers and a raspberry cake made by the organiser Teague Hampson, 22, and others made by those who came.

It was the third year Clayton Wood had taken part in Macmillan's World's Biggest Coffee Morning and it had hoped to beat the £389 raised last year but fell short by £62.

Clayton Wood has a coffee morning on the last Thursday of every month but delayed September's by a day so it could hold its Macmillan one on the actual day Friday, September 26.