A fund set up to send an 11-year-old cancer sufferer on a dream holiday was given a £250 boost this week by an anonymous benefactor.

In last week's Observer we revealed how Tenby Junior School pupil Daniel Burrows, of 13 Knowling Mead, Tenby, is bravely battling his second bout of cancer after having beaten another form of the disease as a toddler.

Family and friends, spearheaded by Mum and Dad Cheryl and Danny, launched an appeal last week to help raise funds to take Daniel on a dream holiday to Give Kids a World in Florida when he finishes his current round of treatment.

Since the report, several fund-raising events have already been organised, but the most mysterious donation to date came on Tuesday.

In an incident more in tune with the pages of a James Bond spy novel, Observer reporter Andrew Davies and Western Telegraph counterpart Ruth Davies both received telephone calls from a man who would only identify himself as 'The Mauve Shadow'.

He instructed them both to be in Tenby's Tudor Square at 9.45 on Tuesday morning.

Their journalistic curiosity whetted, the duo duly arrived in the Square to find a man, disguised in a black and white dog costume, sitting on the benches outside St. Mary's Church.

After ascertaining their identities, the 'dog' thrust a brown envelope into Andrew Davies's hands with the words "For Daniel from the League of the Shadow."

Declining all requests for an interview from both reporters, he then disappeared off up High Street.

On opening the envelope, the reporters found a covering letter "For Daniel Burrows - a very brave boy. Social equalisation It's only just begun... from The Mauve Shadow"; £250 in cash and a letter for Daniel which said: "This is for your holiday. Do what I do, keep fighting, keep smiling. The Mauve Shadow."

As we went to press yesterday (Thursday), extensive inquiries by both reporters have yet to identify this generous, if mysterious, benefactor!