PADDINGTON Bear made children laugh and smile as he visited with jokes and cream teas.

The friendly children's character visited the Headstart Day Nursery, in Hurst Road, Horsham, to promote Action Medical Research's cream teas campaign.

Yesterday (Friday July 1) the charity delivered 6,229 cream teas across the country to raise money for its life-saving research into children's illnesses.

Its unique cream-teas-in-a-box campaign saw the afternoon pick-me-up delivered for donations of £6 each.

Figures for this year had not been totted up as The Argus went to press last night, but last year the charity's volunteers sent out 20,740 scones which, if split open and laid end to end, would stretch over 4.1km.

They packed 10,370 Yorkshire teabags, enough to make 2,593 litres of tea; 871kg of Tiptree strawberry jam; and 415kg of Rodda's Cornish Clotted Cream, made from nearly 11,000 pints of milk, all neatly packaged up complete with 10,370 knives, serviettes and thank you notes.

Action Medical Research has helped medical breakthroughs since it began in 1952, from the development of the first UK polio vaccines to the use of ultrasound in pregnancy.

It is funding research into meningitis, Down syndrome, epilepsy and premature birth, as well as some rare and distressing conditions that severely affect children.

Visit action.org.uk for more information.