SINCE the foot-and-mouth crisis began, the people of Cumbria and surrounding area have made heroic efforts to raise money on behalf of the beleaguered farming community.

Among the many who have helped are staff from the agricultural banking section of Barclays in Kendal who raised a "staggering" £15,000 for the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution on a sponsored bicycle ride.

Teams from the bank set off from Longtown and Ormskirk in Lancashire and converged on Kendal having covered 120 miles between them.

Chris Horsfall, Barclay's agricultural banking manager, explained that RABI had been chosen as their charity of the year long before the foot-and-mouth crisis began, but the decision turned out to be particularly relevant.

Mr Horsfall, who started with Barclays in 1982 and has had some of his farming customers for 15 years, said that for a lot of staff who had worked in agriculture in the area for some years, the farmers and their families meant much more to them than just Barclays' clients.

"I have known some of these people for years and call them my friends," he said.

Catherine Lomax, RABI county secretary, said she was "staggered" when she heard the amount of money they had raised.

"It is absolutely unbelievable," she said, "Personally, I think they are a very special group of people.

It is a lot of money.

It goes without saying that most of the money will be spent in Cumbria simply because we have far and away more cases than anywhere else," she said.

"I know a lot of people have benefited and some have telephoned to say how touched they are by the way people have reacted."

Since foot-and-mouth began in February, the people of Cumbria have donated £ 131,850 to RABI and the charity has spent £1,177,581 in the county helping more than 1,000 families.

In the whole of last year, RABI

helped 1,647 farming families in Britain.

But, such is the scale of the crisis, they have already helped 7,000 families in Britain with more than £7.2 million.

Foot-and-mouth has also made RABI change its approach.

Traditionally, the charity only gave money to help struggling farming families with domestic expenses such as gas and electricity bills.

But they have had to change to help farming families get through the side effects of the crisis with money to buy food for animals trapped on farms by foot-and-mouth movement restrictions.

Mrs Lomax said the response to the crisis in the county had been phenomenal.

As well as the Barclays team, many others have made their own efforts to ease the plight of the hardest-hit farming families.

She said individuals had sent in cheques for up to £700 and a pair of teenage girls from Cockermouth raised £400 from a coffee morning.

Staff at Barclays are continuing their efforts and hope to raise a further £3,000 from a golf day this week.

Donations to RABI can be made via the NFU offices at Agriculture House, Appleby Road, Kendal, LA9 6ET.