A BUS driver and relief controller from York helped raise vital funding for an RSPCA centre just before the world entered lock down due to coronavirus.

Andi King with his son Trafford and brother-in-law Spencer Phillips managed to get home from a fundraising trip to Vietnam in March on the eve of the mass cancellation of international flights and country borders being closed.

They returned from a "gruelling," seven-day expedition travelling 900 miles on motorcycles from Da Nang on the coast to the capital Ho Chi Minh City, re-creating the spirit of a trip made by Top Gear presenters in 2008.

Andi, 55, said: “It wasn’t so much the quality of the roads that proved the biggest challenge but the 45 million registered motorcycles in Vietnam.

"There was little road safety or sense, but it all works.”

The trio, all dog owners and motorbike enthusiasts, are among a group calling itself the Vietnam Grafters Challenge and have so far managed to raise over £1,100 for the RSPCA York and Harrogate branch to help with improving facilities for the animals in its care.

Their flight back was one of the last before Vietnam began reducing travel and stopped visa entry for UK travellers. Andi said: “We made it there and home just in time, otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to raise the money.”

Andi described the trip as a "lifetime ambition," and he is now thinking of charity fundraising ideas in other parts of South East Asia.

Donations can be made by visiting JustGiving and search for Vietnam Grafters Challenge.