MIDDLEWICH residents have been praised for rallying round four firefighters who had £500 in charity cash stolen.

The firefighters took part in last Sunday’s Manchester Half Marathon to raise money for mental health awareness but afterwards realised their bucket containing donations from the public had vanished.

After residents learned what had happened, they took to the firefighters’ Just Giving page and the amount now stands at more than double what was raised in the first place.

Firefighter Ash Powell said: “We’re all totally in shock at how many people have been donating. It’s absolutely unbelievable. It now stands at £1,150.

“It’s turned a horrible experience into a positive one. We’d rather it hadn’t have happened but some good has come out of it, we have raised more than we collected.”

Ash said that the theft was ‘soul destroying’ given that the event took place at the end of Mental Health Awareness Week and just days before the anniversary of the Manchester Arena bombing.

He told the Guardian that he and his colleagues Connor Sweetman, Paul Leigh and Simon Calvert, had put their gear and donation buckets in the boot of his car before going into the town to celebrate such a gruelling half marathon running in their uniforms which weigh around 30kgs. When they returned an hour later the car had been broken into and the money was gone.

Ash said: “I spent a good 20 minutes with my head in my hands sat by my car wondering what to do.

“We always try and do at least one of these big events every year. This year was probably the hottest that it’s ever been, it was gruelling.

“It was like running in a woolly jumper, all the extra kit probably adds about 30 kgs.

“The support we had on the day was amazing.

“When we were going around people were throwing notes at us, usually it’s just small change but when people saw us running around they were digging out £5, £10 and even some £20 notes.

“I might have underestimated how much was in the buckets because they were sealed, so we couldn’t look inside them.

“It wasn’t just the spectators either, people who were running the half marathon were getting money out of their pockets as we were running past.

“People were giving us their water or even carrying ours for us.”