Crispie the Holbury duck is a novel star

She has been raising money for good causes since she was adopted by the manager of an award-winning hotel in the Hampshire countryside.Now the two-year-old Aylesbury duck is poised to help some of Hampshire’s youngest cancer patients.

Liz Cottingham, owner of The Mill at Gordleton, has published a children’s storybook about Crispie, who lives with Terri Seabright and her husband Mike at their Holbury home.

Every morning Terri takes Crispie to work and lets her waddle around the hotel, where she enjoys celebrity status.

Some of the proceeds from the sale of Crispie The Duck – Her First Years will go to the Piam Brown Ward at Southampton General Hospital.

Patients include four-year-old Jaime Allinson, whose mother, Tina Hannington, used to work at the hotel in Silver Street, Hordle.

Jaime was only three when doctors discovered he had a tumour the size of a grapefruit. He underwent six months of chemotherapy, followed by a five-hour operation in which surgeons removed 60 per cent of his liver.

Jaime is currently in remission following another course of chemotherapy, which is thought to have destroyed any remaining fragments of the tumour.

Tina, 47, of Lymington, said: “The liver is the only organ in the body that regenerates and Jaime should end up with a liver that’s 90 per cent of what it should be.

“He has a scan every three months and will have to see a consultant until he’s 17, but the prognosis is good.”

Tina praised the “fantastic” care her son had received at the Piam Brown Ward, which treats young cancer patients.

She is also a big fan of Crispie, whose heart-warming story will raise vital funds for the unit.

As reported in the Daily Echo, Crispie was only a day old when Terri found her outside the hotel. She took the tiny creature home and became her substitute mother, even teaching her how to swim.

The book is on sale at the hotel and the hospital. It will also be available at the Yuletide in Lymington event on December 9.