A historic hotel in Penrith is getting behind a vital airborne charity that saves lives in the Lake District, across the North of England and even over the sea on the Isle of Man.

The George Hotel on Devonshire Street, which has been opening its doors to guests since 1597, has nominated the Great North Air Ambulance Service as its designated charity for a year and kicked off its fund-raising with Brew for a Crew.

For every cup of tea and coffee sold in July the Hotel contributed 25p to the charity and raised a total of £250 which was handed over at a special ceremony at the hotel by manager John Dawes.

He said: “The staff here got together to choose the Air Ambulance – in an area like this it’s such a critical service and so many people will know someone or be related to someone who owes a debt of gratitude to the airborne paramedics.

“It’s a very rural area with a lot of mountains and it can be quite inaccessible which makes the service absolutely vital.

“The helicopter pilots have stayed here in the past so it’s a good fit for us and we’re going to have more fund-raising efforts for them in the coming months.”

The GNAAS covers one of the largest areas in the country, extending over to Durham and Northumberland and into North Yorkshire as well as Cumbria.

It operates two helicopters, based at Langwathby, near Penrith, and at Progress House in Eaglescliffe, in Durham, and last year it answered over 2,000 call-outs.

Community fundraiser Mieke Tennant said: “It’s very important to us that we’ve been chosen by the George Hotel because it’s vital that people know about the charity and what it does.

“It costs £9.3 million a year, all of which has to be raised from donations and appeals, to keep the helicopters flying and to provide road vehicles on duty when they can’t.

“The service covers 8,000 square miles and in Cumbria everyone knows we don’t have any major hospitals and we reckon around here one in every three or four people knows someone who has used the service.

“Those helicopters are a familiar sight in the skies, but when it’s too dark, misty or cold for them, our team will transfer to cars to continue responding to call-outs.”

The George Hotel, whose previous guests include Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745, is part of the Everbright Hotel Group which owns a total of seven hotels, five of them in North Wales and a second in Cumbria, the Stonecross Manor, in Kendal.

Group Area General Manager Catalin Oanea said they would be holding a similar fund-raiser for the Air Ambulance in November during International Coffee Week and at Christmas would be holding raffles for prizes including Christmas hampers donated by their suppliers, meals for two and Christmas Party Nights.

For more information about the Great North Air Ambulance go to https://www.greatnorthairambulance.co.uk/ and for more on Everbright Hotels go to https://www.everbrightgrouphotels.com/