About 20 members of the Portsmouth University Diving and Underwater Club took to the pool to play games, including snakes and ladders, dominos and even Scrabble thanks to a bit of ingenuity with some small lead weights.

The aim was to raise money for the BBC's annual Children in Need appeal while at the same time having underwater fun.

Fund-raisers in the south are hoping to help beat last year's national total of £37m.

Games-athon organiser Bruce Collier, 22, spent a total of 12 hours in the pool at the Pyramids Centre, Southsea.

The computer games technology student, of Beach Road, Southsea, said: 'It was brilliant fun but it's very tiring. We had large garden play toys like snakes and ladders and we had Ludo and KerPlunk and we had a lot of support with cylinders for the divers.'

The rules meant the divers had to stay on the bottom of the pool and they were given more than 100 oxygen tanks by local companies Solent Divers, Dive Connection and Andark.

The 24 hour session started at 6.30pm on Wednesday and finished last night.

Cathy Boorer, 20, of Sandringham Road, Fratton, said: 'We had at least four people in the water at all times.

'Through the night there were people asleep on the side with sleeping bags everywhere and people crashing out so we had to kick them awake and tell them to get in the pool.

'I'm knackered but it was such good fun, it was such a great laugh.'

Another of the organisers, biology student Liz Clarke, 21, of Castle Road, Southsea, said the divers had managed to keep going by having fun – and ordering pizza.

'It was really good,' she said. 'Th'It was really good,' she said. 'The lifeguards were really friendly and everyone enjoyed it.