Young farmers have raised almost £5,000 to support their chairman diagnosed with cancer.

Members of Dorset Young Farmers have come together to support Matthew Frampton, who is county chairman and runs Beaminster Young Farmers, by launching the ‘Wacky Underwear’ challenge on social media and hosting a quiz and raffle.

Mr Frampton was diagnosed with testicular cancer in December 2019 and had surgery on Christmas Eve. However, in March, a CT scan confirmed it had spread and he had three secondary tumours rapidly growing on his lungs. He started nine weeks of chemotherapy and had his last session on Wednesday.

Tracy Hounsome, county organiser for the Dorset Federation of Young Farmers Clubs, said: “We wanted to do something and we had a few ideas of what we wanted to do. Our members are between the ages of 15 and 45 and this cancer would hit them, so we thought this is something we need to do - not just to raise funds but also for them to know about it.

“Four of us got together and we were trying to think of all these ideas. When we do a fundraiser, it is usually a party or something like that, so we were thinking of an online disco, but we wanted to involve other people, not just members.”

Two members came up with the idea of a quiz and another the idea of a raffle, so they decided to combine these and have a campaign for members to flood social media with pictures. Money is being raised for Orchid, which funds research, awareness and support to save men's lives from male cancer.

Tracy added: “Matt is a positive, hardworking person and it was nice to be able to do something to show our support to him, give him a bit of positivity in the situation we’re in where everything is a bit strange for everybody at the moment and keep all our members involved, happy and talking. These seemed to be great ways of doing it.

“There are loads of them [wacky underwear photos] all over the place. It has taken off and is spreading through the other young farmer areas. We shared it with the south west so Devon and Cornwall are also doing it.”

The idea of the Wacky Underwear challenge is to upload a photo of yourself in wacky underwear over your normal clothes and post it on social media with the hashtags #MattsFight and #KnowYourNuts. Tag three friends to do the same and donate £5 to the Just Giving page at https://bit.ly/2MReYHj. So far, more that £4,800 has been raised.

Mr Frampton said: “There were a few members who wanted to do something to benefit me or whichever charity I wanted to donate to, and I chose the Orchid charity. There has been some lovely support. We only set out to raise £500.

“It’s been a brilliant boost for me as it has gone along, the messages people have been writing are lovely to read. It’s been an amazing support.”

He has also thanked all the doctors and nurses at Dorchester, Salisbury, Poole and Southampton for all the care and support he has received, as well as Macmillan Cancer Support.