THE Saltcoats community will come together to fundraise in memory of ex-Scots Guard Ian Hamilton, following his death last December.

Ian, known to his army friends as “Hammy”, died from heart disease in December 2020.

In memory of his life, a British Heart Foundation (BHF) fundraising event will be held at Saltcoats Labour Club on November 26.

His daughter, Jackie Ballantyne, told the Herald: “My dad was well known in the Three Towns, and due to Covid-19 restrictions we couldn’t do the event when we wanted to.

“When I was diagnosed with breast cancer I did fundraising for Crosshouse Hospital, and I did one for Beatson, raising thousands of pounds for both.

“I’ve lost a few friends to heart attacks and I know people who have had heart bypasses.

"It gets spoken about quite a lot but the more fundraising and awareness raising we do the better.

“We’ve got dad’s friends from the Guards coming on the night, and we’re doing a buffet as well.

"We’ve sold 120 tickets so far and we’ll have donations for the charity on the night too.

“He loved helping me with fundraisers, he kept saying: ‘You’ll need to have another one, you’ll need to have another one!’.

“He’ll love that this is in memory of him, he’ll be chuffed to bits up there thinking, ‘she’s doing another fundraiser, and it’s for me’.”

The charity event will begin at 7pm at Saltcoats Labour Club, with tickets on the door at £2.

Entertainment will be provided by singer Kim Galloway, and there will be music supplied by DJ Malcky B.

Scotland has shown high prevalence of heart disease in recent years.

In 2019, five percent of all adults reported that they had been diagnosed with coronary heart disease, with 6,560 deaths in Scotland due to the disease in the same year.