CHARITY champion Margaret McKeegan has been nominated to carry the Olympic Torch after raising thousands of pounds for good causes.

The 77-year-old grandmother, from Newtown, first started fundraising about 25 years ago when she organised a 60s night to buy oxygen monitors for the baby unit at the old Deva Hospital, where she was a nurse.

She has also raised money to help provide a parents’ room at the Countess of Chester children's ward, a treadmill for the hospital’s cardiac rehabilitation unit, cash for a holiday for a nurse who lost both legs and funds to help a 27-year-old mum in Blacon to pay for her husband's funeral.

More recently she has sent more than 1,800 shoe boxes of goodies to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Her gifts – each one labelled with the heartfelt message ‘Keep safe, God bless’ – have prompted more than 40 soldiers to write to her from the front line.

Last year she completed a nine-mile walk from Chester to Tattenhall to raise more than £900 to buy an injured soldier at Dale Barracks an adapted rehabilitation chair.

Margaret was nominated by her close friend Pam Moyle, who said: “She is one of the most caring, hard- working and positive people I know.