A DETERMINED young hiker has put his best feet forward to swell the coffers of a Liphook school charity.

Oscar Tyrrell-Evans marched the length of the scenic South Downs Way, completing one hundred monumental miles from Winchester in Hampshire to Eastbourne in East Sussex and raising a cool £1,300 for Highfield Highreach Holidays along the way.

Volunteer-led Highfield Highreach Holidays provides week-long breaks for disabled children aged eight to 16 and is run by Highfield and Brookham Schools in Liphook.

Oscar, who attends Highfield Prep School, took a slightly more unorthodox approach to his fundraising challenge, walking the route in a series of random, bite-sized sections - including a ten-mile section with sister Amelie, who also attends Highfield - while still staying faithful to the overall trail.

Yet the charity walk may never have materialised at all but for a Christmas present that Oscar received last December - a pair of Army boots.

"As soon as he received them he said he just simply wanted to walk," said proud mum Caroline Tyrrell-Evans, whose youngest son, George, is a pupil at Brookham Pre-prep School. "He was so happy at the end of it. When he came over the final hill and saw his grandparents and banners congratulating him on his 100-mile walk, he was so chuffed."

Congratulating Oscar, Highfield headmaster Phillip Evitt said: "We always try to encourage our children to give back and be outward looking and this is a fantastic example of such an ethos."