FUNDRAISERS will be sticking their oar in at Terrington Hall School to help raise cash for a breast cancer charity.

Pupils, parents and staff at the school will be trying to row an amazing 400km - the distance from Terrington to London - using ten rowing machines at the rowathon on Friday, February 15.

The school has one machine on permanent loan but the others are being provided thanks to science teacher Kate Green and her husband Andy, both of whom are former Oxford boat race crew members. The designer of the machines is a friend of theirs from their rowing days and offered to loan them to the school.

Head teacher John Glen laughed: "They look like instruments of medieval torture! But the rowing machine has been very popular with the children. It's something different."

An illuminated map on the wall will record the rower's progress throughout the day, while Pocklington firm POW WOW Water is providing a water cooler. A licensed bar is being run on the day for those adults wishing to quench thirst in a different way.

Money raised will go towards the charity Breakthrough for Breast Cancer and also towards equipment for the new school science lab, which is due to be opened on the day by another rower, Roger Brown, who rowed at the Olympic Games in 1992 and 1996.

Updated: 13:58 Thursday, February 07, 2002