A FIVE-hour dance-athon by a Callington octogenarian will end a day of Christmas festivities in the town next month.

Getting on his dancing shoes and tearing up the town hall dance floor, 83-year-old George Dawe has signed himself up to dance for five hours straight to raise money for the town's Kelliwik Festival — a feat he said would be 'easy'.

George will be dancing during the 'Late Night Dance' with family band 'Yorkie' on December 6 at Callington Town Hall. He will start during the children's disco and continue until around midnight. He volunteered for the fundraising mission after visiting the Kelliwik Festival earlier this year and hearing that organisers were holding various fundraising events to raise enough money to hold it again next year.

Having danced a lot with his wife in his younger years, George called himself a 'keen dancer' and took it up again after losing his wife and later, his daughter.

'I just love to dance,' George said.

'I do anything from ballroom to rock and roll. My wife and I used to dance quite often and when she died, my daughter came to live with me, but she died at 49 and then I thought "what do I do now?" so I did a lot of dancing.'

George regularly attends the Callington sequence dancing group and a dance group in Saltash and then does whatever dancing he can do in between.

'I had nothing to do with the Kelliwik Festival this year but I went along and it was brilliant. They said there wouldn't be Lottery funding for it next year, so I thought this is my turn to fundraise.

'I'm not worried about it at all — five hours of dancing will be easy!'

He said Yorkie always brought a lot of followers with them so there would be lots of people to dance with and a great atmosphere.

Peter Sulstan, chairman of the 2015 Kelliwik Festival working group, said: 'George loves to dance — you can't stop him. If you were to go to the Bull's Head in an evening, he'll be there dancing away.

'It was his initiative, he said he wanted to dance for five hours, so we're supporting him.

'Yorkie is a very popular band and we are hoping lots of people will follow them. I'm sure there will be plenty of people lining up to dance with George.

'This year we held the first Kelliwik Festival and now we're trying to raise funds to hold it next year. It is a free festival so we need to raise money to stage it because we won't be able to fund it from ticket sales.

'The more money we can raise, the more we can put on at the festival.'

The 'Late Night Dance' will start at 8pm and is free to enter, but people can sponsor George on the night or make a donation. There will be a bar and pasties available.

The evening event will be the end of a day of festivities in the town, including a Christmas craft market and Santa's Grotto from 10am to 2pm in the town hall, a Victorian market in the pannier market from 4pm to 7.30pm, the switching on of the Christmas lights at 4.45pm in St Mary's Square, a family Christmas disco from 5.30pm to 7.30pm in the town hall, followed by the 'Late Night Dance' at 8pm and the popular Santa Sprint in aid of CHICKS starting from Callington Cricket Club at 3pm.

Callington Town Council will be providing free car parking in the town throughout the day in support of the Christmas festivities.