Author raises thousands at charity ball
November 28, 2002 at 10:01 PM ET
DarkMark
Organisers said guests had donated almost three times as much as expected during the Halloween banquet at Stirling castle.
A total of £225,000 came from an after-dinner auction, with one unnamed guest paying £10,000 for a walk-on part in the next Harry Potter movie.
Other items included a studio tour in Los Angeles and a holiday on a private island in the West Indies.
Organisers had originally hoped to raise £100,000 from the event, which was in aid of the Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland.
The castle was transformed into a spooky Celtic banquet with fire-eaters, pipers and burning torches.
Ian Hislop, Private Eye editor and panelist on current affairs TV quiz Have I Got News For You, entertained the 225 guests in the candle-lit dinner hall.
Glenda Mackenzie, fund-raising manager at Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland, said the figure of £275,000 was "beyond our wildest dreams".
She said: "This amount could for instance double the number of specialist MS nurses in Scotland.
"We are hugely grateful to our patron JK Rowling for her personal enthusiasm and support without which none of this would have been possible."
Source: anaova.com