Tributes have been paid to two charity fundraisers who have passed away.

Former policeman Alan Dempsey, 71, was a dedicated accountant for Maundy Relief and several local churches.

Meanwhile Ann Stuttard, 85, spent 50 years supporting the Leprosy Mission and other charities.

Both have supported local charities for decades and helped them support needy people in Hyndburn and around the world.

Friends said Alan was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and died peacefully at the East Lancashire Hospice following a short illness.

Childhood friend Bob Dobson, membership secretary of Accrington Grammar School Old Boys, said Alan was a very good friend to many.

He said: “He came to Accrington Grammar School in 1954 and he was already known as a good footballer and cricketer. He was a very sporty man throughout his school career.

“He was very laid-back and amiable and very friendly with everybody who spoke to him.”

He joined the police cadets after leaving Accrington Boys Grammar School and went on to become a popular PC working the beat at Ashton-under-Lyne before becoming an accountant.

Alan, of Hawthorn Avenue, Oswaldtwistle, had been an accountant for several firms and local churches and for Accrington Grammar School Old Boys.

A loyal member and treasurer of Trinity Community Church in Woodnook, he was treasurer at Maundy Relief for 10 years working closely with the late Dorothy McGregor.

He was married to?Ena who predeceased him.

Ann, formerly of School House in Great Haworth, worked at the Co-op in Oswaldtwistle and then as a caretaker at Green Haworth School and later a florist.

She spent more than 50 years supporting the Leprosy Mission and also supported an appeal to send spectacles to people in Africa.

She read newspapers for the blind and sold raffle tickets for a children’s cancer charity and the RNLI while she was living in a nursing home.

Ann suffered a brain tumour in 2000 and later lost mobility down her left side but her eldest daughter Margaret, 61, says it did not stop her mum from helping others.

She said: “She was never ever bored and she always had the adage ‘there’s no such thing as can’t’, she was very determined.

“Even with her disabilities she was badgering people to buy raffle tickets from her wheelchair.”

Margaret says her mother, who spent her later years in Blackburn, must have raised thousands of pounds for various good causes over the years and had also run a tombola to raise money for a Green Haworth church.

She was a member of the Soroptimists and helped on a project to open a cafe and drop-in centre for needy people in Accrington.

Ann passed away in hospital as a result of a brain haemorrhage. Her funeral will be held on Friday.