GENEROUS Gwent people have raised £8.5 million in the past 15 years for St Anne's Hospice.

Argus readers have raised around £800,000 through our appeals for the Newport-based charity which has helped almost 3,000 terminally ill patients and is marking its 15th birthday.

Now matron Sister Berenice, one of its founders, is thanking fundraisers and those who have made donations to help the hospice in its vital work with patients and their families.

But the ten-bed hospice has to raise another £1.5 million this year, and Sister Berenice would dearly love to have another ten beds to help double the number of patients it sees like John Williams, 77, from Caerphilly county who is pictured having treatment at St Anne's.

Sister Berenice said: "We have such wonderful patients who even during the worst periods of their lives are brave and courageous."