A POPULAR busker has hung up his accordion for the last time after raising more than £32,000 for charity.

George Smewing, 85, has for the past five years been a familiar sight outside Marks and Spencer in Worthing.

Since his wife Stella, 92, was taken into a care home the former engineer has kept himself busy by raising money for children’s hospice Chestnut Tree House.

Filling Montague Street with the sound of familiar favourites and offering shoppers someone to sit with and have a chat, Mr Smewing has managed to raise a grand total of £32,600.

He said: “My reasons at first were purely selfish. As I got older my abilities dwindled, my good lady went into a nursing home and I was on my own.

“So I said to my neighbour I have to find something to do and he said ‘why don’t you go busking in aid of the children’s hospice?’.

“It was a question of giving me a reason to get up, get out and give me people to chat to. People came to talk to me and really putting the bucket out was secondary.”

Mr Smewing started playing the accordion around 40 years ago but said he was “too busy” raising a family to give it his full attention until he moved to Worthing and retired.

On Friday Mr Smewing had a grand send off and shared his last morning with his fans.

He said: “I love playing and by going down there I have a captive audience.

“It has been very pleasant and I shall miss them all terribly.

“But you know I have been telling my body for years I am not getting old but it does not believe it anymore.

“I have not the faintest idea what I am going to do now. I will still go out and do the various gig.

“Playing down the town became an obsession.

“As long as I had the bucket and the weather was fine I would go out – but the pressure was purely from me to do it.”