MORE than 100 bikers roared up to Oxford Children’s Hospital for their annual toy drop.

The Harley-Davidson riders from across Oxfordshire and beyond dropped off two crates full of puzzles and games yesterday for some of the least fortunate children in the city.

Hospital staff said the annual visit, running since 1999, sent a buzz around the hospital in Headington.

Several children and their families met the bikers outside when they arrived, including three-year-old Poppy Bullock.

Poppy was diagnosed with a Wilm’s tumour, a type of kidney cancer, last year when she was just two.

Yesterday with her brother Jacob, four, and parents Susan and Paul, she joined the excitement and even got to sit on a real Harley-Davidson.

Mrs Bullock, 37, who lives near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, said: “It’s incredible – we didn’t think there would be this many.

“She particularly liked sitting on the bike – she said it was soft and comfy.”

Many children at the hospital were too sick to leave their wards, but staff said they could still join in the excitement by watching from the windows.

Oxford Mail:

  • Oxford Children’s Hospital patient Poppy Bullock, pictured with her four-year-old brother Jacob on a Harley-Davidson

Senior play specialist Sally Hitching said: “I’ve been meeting these guys for 20 years and they are always amazing.

“They bring lovely gifts, which keeps us in presents throughout the year. What isn’t given out is used for birthday presents or rewards for when children have a bad day.

“They love it, they love all the excitement.

“Those who haven’t come down are looking out of the windows – it is such a buzz.”

There are up to 100 children at the hospital with illnesses ranging from broken bones to tumours like Poppy’s.

All the bikers came from the Oxford, Thames Valley and Rolling Hills Cheltenham Harley-Davidson chapters.

Each chapter is based at a dealership – the Oxford dealership is in Wootton, near Abingdon.

Oxford member Ron Coles, a former ambulance driver, was one of the founders of the children’s hospital present drop 16 years ago. The 73-year-old from Newbury, who arrived on his Road King, said: “For some of the bikers who have never been here before it is a real eyeopener.

“You see these kids laid in bed, it isn’t right, yet they hardly ever moan, they always try to smile when we come in.”

The annual tradition was named the Jake Spicer Memorial Run in 2010 after a former hospital patient who lost a six-year battle with cancer the year before.

Yesterday his mother Lesley Spicer joined the rally at the hospital and said: “It’s amazing as always.

“I took a photo of a big Harley-Davidson biker with a little Hello Kitty box and I just thought ‘that’s quality’.”

She said Jake, who would have been 21 in May this year, “would have loved it”.