A family raised over £1,600 for a charity dedicated to preventing young suicides in memory of a former Wisbech man who took his own life earlier this year.

Husband and wife Rob and Jo Satt organised a fishing match at the Willowcroft Fisheries in Wisbech St Mary at the weekend to raise money for Papyrus.

The event, which was in-undated with anglers keen to take part, was in memory of Jo’s cousin Ricky Rodwell, who died in Queensland, Australia where he had lived since 2011. A memorial service was held at Walsoken parish church for him in July and his ashes were later scattered on Hunstanton beach.

Ricky, 39, was the son of mum Maggie and stepdad Paul Mainwaring and dad Barry and stepmum Annette Rodwell.

He loved fishing and his family were keen to do something in his memory and help others who may be considering suicide or families who have suffered a loss in that way.

A total of 29 anglers took to the waters at Willowcroft for the memorial match on Saturday and thanks to the efforts of Jo, Rob helped by Maggie and Paul the event proved a huge success.

The family worked tirelessly behind the scenes to obtain donations of prizes for both a draw and for the fisherman of the match.

Jo said: “We were overwhelmed with the generosity of businesses including Fen Regis Trophies who gave us a good discount and free engraving on the trophies.

“The day itself was beautiful, Ricky was definitely shining down on us, the temperature was over 20 degrees with not a cloud in sight. The weather however, did make it hard for fishing but the anglers all persevered with it in the blistering heat right through until 4pm when they weighed in.”

Trevor Johnson took first place, 2nd place winner was Dan Simper and 3rd place winner was Pawel Nycz. But thanks to the generosity from businesses no one went away empty handed.

A staggering £1,440.50 was raised in sponsor money, with more to come.

Jamie Dorman donated a match pole which was raffle off and raised £180 which gave a grand total of £1,620.50 so far.

Jo added: “I am truly amazed by the kindness of people and we have succeeded in our goal to raise money for a brilliant cause & raise awareness of mental illness. We are hoping to make this a yearly event to honour Ricky and keep raising awareness. I’m sure Ricky would be very proud.