A “world record” for the longest zip wire journey, claimed at Newquay’s Lusty Glaze Beach by Cornish beer icon Betty Stogs, has raised £3,000 for the St Austell-based Merlin Project.

The eventual figure will be even higher. Money raised has reached its present level some eight months after the event – and Betty, aka Fred Thomas of Sticker, says sponsorship donations are still coming in even now. The amount raised so far is already double the original target.

Betty, the buxom figurehead of Truro-based Skinners Brewery’s namesake best-selling beer, took to the air in all her finery at the Lusty Glaze Adventure Centre.

The former Cornish-style wrestling champion launched “herself” with harness and pulley from the top of a 120ft cliff ten times. Each time she “flew” just over 500 feet across the horseshoe-shaped beach, stopping short of the other side and then returning to the centre to descend to the beach.

This way, she clocked up a total distance of some 7,500 feet. That was enough to exceed the 6,400 feet of what is believed to be the world’s longest zip wire at Sun City in South Africa.

The Merlin Project at Hewas Water is Cornwall’s only MS therapy centre. The county has the highest incidence of multiple sclerosis on the UK mainland, with only the Orkney Islands higher.