A gift horse for charity's 50th year

The gift was a replica of the full-scale special edition bus celebrating Rockinghorse charity’s 50th anniversary.

The small rocking horse was auctioned off as the grand prize at a fundraiser for the city of Saturday (October 7).

The children’s rocking horse mini-bus was created by body shop engineers Nathan Enticknapp and Steve Boreham who had previous form having built mini-buses that doubled as mobile book shelves for Mile Oak School.

Rockinghorse charity chief executive Ryan Heal said: “The ‘mini’ rocking horse bus is remarkable. What a wonderful idea! We are so grateful to Nathan and Steve for creating it. Not only does it look great, but it has also enabled us to raise funds for our Sussex Giving for Sussex Children appeal. The bus was featured as a special auction lot at our 50th Anniversary Ball and will be donated to The Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital.”

It was Nathan and Steve's supervisor Frank Clasen who thought it would be great to create a mini version of the Rockinghorse bus. Nathan and Steve worked on the concept in their own time for a few hours over a few weeks and used the same designs as the real Rockinghorse bus on which they also worked.

Frank said: “Steve and Nathan are really talented: they can turn their hand to anything. They wanted it to be put to its best use for the Rockinghorse charity to raise money for sick children.”

The mini version is dedicated to Dr Trevor Mann, who founded the Rockhorse children's charity, the same as the full-scale bus.

The replica bus has two seats, a steering wheel (complete with squeaky toy), a dash board, its own registration – Horse 1 and is a fully working child's rocking horse.

The charity, which is the official fundraising arm of the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton, helps sick children across Sussex, and in its 50th year is aiming to raise half a million pounds to benefit causes across the county.