A BUSMAN’s holiday raised more than £1,000 for a little boy battling cancer.

Bus driver Ian Thompson, from Shotton Colliery, organised a competition for fellow drivers to win a day off work on full pay to raise money for Bradley Lowery, a five year-old boy from Blackhall battling neuroblastoma.

The 35-year-old, who has been a driver with Stagecoach North East for 14 years, set up the competition for staff at the company’s bus depots in Sunderland and Hartlepool.

Drivers were encouraged to donate as much as possible, with the winners of a raffle getting a day’s paid leave while Mr Thompson covered their shift.

Winner Dale Crane spent his time off with his two-year-old son and also took in a match at Hartlepool FC, while Sunderland winner Oz McCormack donated her prize to fellow bus driver Carol Taylor, who is fighting her own battle against cancer.

Mr Thompson said: “I have been following Bradley’s plight on Facebook for a long time and my wife noticed that she had gone to school with Bradley’s parents.

“Bradley also lives in the next village to me, so the realisation of his new fight with cancer which returned in 2015 really hit home, and it made me want to do something to help.”

During his shift on the buses, Mr Thompson dressed in a T-shirt with Bradley’s face, to help raise extra funds through donations from passengers

Over the course of two weeks, he has raised more than £1,000 towards the cost of potentially life-saving treatment for Bradley in the USA.