WHEN Allan Lever and Val Lester got married in Bolton they made a generous gesture that will offer a happier future to hundreds of women they will never meet.

Instead of wedding gifts, Allan and Val, from Horwich, asked for donations to the Linda McCartney breast care unit at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. And their kindness brought a £1,900 windfall to the pioneering centre.

Val, a 58 year-old PA with mail order company Littlewoods in Liverpool, was treated at the specialist unit after a breast lump was discovered last year. It proved to be cancer and she had to have a mastectomy and reconstruction followed by chemotherapy over a period of seven months.

Allan, a 59 year-old local businessman, proposed to Val at Christmas, but the duo decided to wait until Val’s treatment was finished before tying the knot.

And, before a number of family and friends, they finally married at Mere Hall Register Office, followed by a reception — complete with bouncy castle for young guests — at home.

“People were very kind in their gifts,” explained Allan. And the couple were even more delighted when fellow members of his social networking group BNI, who meet early each Friday morning at the Brittania Hotel in Beaumont Road, added a £100 donation — topped up by a further £100 by BNI executive director Terry Hamill.

The money is now going towards buying a costly machine for the unit, set up in Paul McCartney’s late wife’s name, which pinpoints cancer cells during breast surgery.

“We were both very pleased with the response from everyone,” added Allan. “We’re just so glad it will help the unit and other women in the future.”

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