Mourners from several parts of the world flocked to Purton church to pay tribute to a man who raised more than £110,000 for research and treatment into a rare cancer.

Pete Holland, who ran the fundraising appeal with his wife Jeannette, fought myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone marrow, for more than four years.

He died on November 9, the day before his 58th birthday and their fourth wedding anniversary. They had been together for 15 years.

Family members, friends, employees and business contacts from all over Wiltshire packed St Mary's parish church, and the service was relayed to more than 100 people who stood outside. The eldest of a family of six, Mr Holland lived in Paraguay as a child and later worked in Brazil.

His brother Matt, the founder and organiser of Swindon Festival of Literature, told mourners: "He had a real hunger for life. He worked hard and played hard.''

His father Leslie, a 93-year-old retired art teacher, talked of Peter's boyhood and of how the family came to settle in Purton.

He and Jeannette married three months after he was diagnosed with myeloma, a disease which is so uncommon that specialists at Princess Margaret Hospital see only three new patients a year.