RED hair, red noses, leg shaving and baked beans made up a day of fun and frantic fund raising.

Hundreds of people in North Yorkshire put their sanity briefly on hold to do their bit for Comic Relief.

In their efforts to raise money for those worse off than themselves they went through pain, ridicule, humiliation and exhaustion, sometimes all at the same time.

Schools, pubs, councils, the Army and even big business played their part in raising tens of thousands of pounds in the name of a good cause.

In Northallerton eight senior managers from Hambleton District Council had a very bad hair day.

They had volunteered to bare all when they had their legs shaved by their female colleagues.

Members of staff turned out in force to watch the razors being wielded at the Hambleton Leisure Centre.

Organiser and accountancy manager Karen Iveson said: "Everyone was looking forward to seeing their bosses suffer and all in a good cause."

Later at the same venue three lifeguards were put through the same ordeal, with the help of staff from local beauty salon Merryweathers.

At Ripon, four soldiers from 38 Engineer Regiment spent the day walking round the city centre, carrying 38lb packs on their backs for a distance of 38 miles.

Their ten-hour marathon left them with blisters on their feet and buckets full of cash, carried by their supporters who followed them the easy way, on the back of a convoy of armoured vehicles.

At Thirsk School, youngsters and staff all got into the spirit of the day and looked set to reach their own target of £5,000.

Head of PE Andy Rickard ended up covered in baked beans, while other teachers took part in a messy breakfast game no doubt devised by students. Pupils did everything from running a non-stop relay for a week to playing a 12-hour pool marathon just to make sure their sponsors had to dig deep.

Bizarrely-clad fund-raisers at Marne Barracks, Catterick, stole a march on everybody else by holding their event a couple of days ahead of the official Red Nose Day.

The soldiers served up grub for others and added hundreds of pounds to the total.

At Harrogate, the chairman of UK plant hire giant Vp Plc, Jeremy Pilkington and JCB boss Sir Anthony Bamford took time out from the board room and donned red noses as they launched a joint Comic Relief initiative.

Vp's subsidiary, ukforks, will donate the first week's hire of a new fleet of JCB telehandlers, equal to about £6,000.

The company's generous donation will be matched pound for pound by Sir Anthony and JCB.