‘The Man of Many Millions of Hampshire’ continued his 50 year fundraising streak

Leslie Leyhoe from Gosport and his wife Lyn select a local charity to support every year, and host quiz nights and race evenings such as being the quizmaster for three pubs - The Kingfisher caravan park (Mondays), The Three Tuns (Sundays) and The Five Alls (Wednesdays).

From 2023, £198,000 had been raised for local charities, and Saturday's race event pushed it up by £6,035, making the total now £202,000. All the profits of these events go to the chosen charity which this year is The Elizabeth Foundation for Deaf Children. They are based in Cosham and are the UK's largest provider of education services for babies and preschool children with all degrees of deafness. Previous charities helped have included Motiv8 and GAFIRS which both received £16 thousand raised by ‘Lil Les Charity Man’.

Les has been fundraising since he was 16 and raised over £1million by the time he was 18. In January 2017 he was awarded with a British Citizen Award for his services to volunteering and charitable giving.

He stated that he began regularly fundraising after raising money for the Wyndham Lions when he was 16 and received a personal thank you. He said: “The joy to people and the community made me feel so happy, I decided to keep going for the rest of my life”.

The ‘Royal Navy Style’ horse race evening, held at HMS Sultan, is a bi-annual event that runs from 7pm to midnight. The evening was attended by several people of note, such as Dame Caroline Dinenage MP of Gosport and Major General the Right Honourable Baron Lancaster of Kimbolton TD.

As the events are so popular, they are limited to 300 people but they book up fast. Les stated that he's already had 3 tables booked for the next race, which is confirmed for September 28.