Neil Cole, who died on TuesdayA SWINDON pub is raising cash to help buy a lasting memorial for a popular teenager who died after a skateboarding accident.

Staff at the Victoria pub in Old Town are accepting donations for their former 18-year-old colleague, Neil Cole, who died on Tuesday after suffering serious head injuries in a high-speed fall.

Assistant manager Lucy Bridewell, 27, said a steady flow of punters were leaving cash.

"We decided to make a collection because he was such a popular guy and a good friend to everybody who knew him," she said.

"This has had a huge impact on everybody. A dark cloud is hanging over us because it was so sudden and so tragic."

The cremation will be in Truro, Cornwall, at 1.30pm on Tuesday and his ashes will be scattered on the Newquay coastline.

His family are hoping to hold a memorial service in Swindon the following day to coincide with his birthday. They want to use the collection money to buy something special to leave at the place of the accident, near Newquay, which they visited yesterday.

Funds could also be used for a permanent memorial at his regular drinking haunt in Swindon, the Walkabout.

Neil's sister, Elly, 20, of Chippen-ham, said: "We are all completely shocked and overwhelmed by people's kindness.

"We are thinking about having some sort of cross with a skateboard on it which we want to leave at the place where he had the accident.

"Anybody can come down to Truro for the cremation but they don't have to feel like they have to because there will be a service in Swindon. We hope this will be on Wednesday so we can sing happy birthday."

Tributes have flooded in since Neil's death and on Tuesday more than 30 people paid their last respects at the Walkabout.

Family and friends have described him as full of spirit, the life and soul of the party with a heart of gold.

Elly said her brother died doing what he loved but, because he was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, she is urging others to don protective headgear.

Neil, of Harcourt Road, Ferndale, was rushed to the Royal Cornwall Hospital shortly after noon on Saturday after falling from his long board while travelling downhill between Porth and Trevelgue, near Newquay, Cornwall.

His family rushed to his bedside but he never regained conscious-ness.

The extreme sports enthusiast, who worked at the Just Add Water surf shop in the Brunel Centre until March, had travelled to the popular surf spot to take part in the annual Run to the Sun event.

After living in Baydon, near Swindon, with his parents, Allan and Jan, Neil moved to Swindon and was working at Nationwide at the time of his death.

He also leaves another sister Debby, 35, of Essex, and brother Iain, 32, who lives in Cyprus.

Ben Payne