ONE man’s harbourside busking at Boscastle has raised thousands of pounds for charity — and the latest result of his efforts has been presented to Cornwall Hospice Care.

Musician John Maughan presented the cheque at the village’s Wellington Hotel.

John’s charity busking was first reported some 20 years ago by local journalist Alistair Wreford, who wrote an article on John’s fundraising efforts with the caption ‘The Boscastle Busker’ — the nickname stuck.

John and his wife Cheryl first moved to Cornwall from the North in 1972.

They discovered the Napoleon Inn, Boscastle, with Charlie Jose and co in full voice with the village’s residents all singing just for the joy of it.

Charlie would encourage John and Cheryl to sing, with the words, “I’m a bit short of wind, come on you young ’uns — give us one of your songs.”

John said: “It was an exchange of traditions. We learned Cornish songs and Charlie learned ours.”

They warmed to life in Cornwall and John and Cheryl later went on to have three children, Ben, Anna and Emily.

‘The Damnbuskers’ were then formed, with son Ben on the accordian, Martin Frithe on the fiddle, Graham Morgan (Morgie) on guitar and vocals by John, Cheryl and Julie Hunt.

Sadly, Morgie developed cancer, spending several years receiving treatment and getting respite care in Mount Edgcumbe Hospice.

Upon visiting him at the respite facility, Morgie spoke to John and Cheryl about wanting to raise money to aid the work they did.

Unfortunately Morgie died two weeks later, but honouring the promise he made to raise money to support the hospice John

began busking unnacompanied in the Boscastle harbour.

He set out with a goal of raising £1,000 for the hospice — by the end of the summer he had raised an impressive £3,500, including generous donations from local pubs.

The ‘Boscatle Busker’ continued to raise money for the charity group and busk in the harbour for most of the summer. To date, John has made two CDs and has joined a humanitarian trip to the Gaza Strip, distributing aid and singing to refugee camps.

He and Cheryl have also taken part in the Plymouth Dakar Challenge — which involved driving from Boscastle to Gambia. They raised thousands of pounds for Gambian charities.

John set himself a target of raising £17,000 before the end of the season for charity — he has already surpassed this with a total of £17,065 from his busking.