FIRM friends Hayley Paine and Gary and Michelle Hutt came out winners after a charity auction on behalf of a pre-school at Stanford in the Vale.

Wantage estate agents Douglas Gribben offered their selling services for free, and Mrs Paine, who now lives at Clanfield, came top with her bid of £2,500.

Her cash went straight to the playschool, which two of her children attended when they were younger, before the family moved out of the immediate area.

She and her husband, Charlie, who runs the Total Recruitment agency at Didcot, had no immediate plans to move again, so Mrs Paine passed on the estate agents' services to her friends, the Hutts, who emigrated to Australia yesterday.

The Hutts' home, Lawn Drive, in the nearby village of Goosey, was on the market prior to the auction, and Douglas Gribben sold the property for them for £315,000, which the Hutts estimated saved them a fee of between £5,000 and £6,000.

Mrs Hutt, 36, a freelance hairstylist, and her husband, Gary, a 31-year-old self-employed carpenter and joiner, are moving to a community near Brisbane, in Queensland, with their daughters, Adrianne-Joy, eight, and Chantelle, five.

She said: "It's taken 15 months to achieve this under a new type of immigration scheme, but with the strength of the British pound to the Australian dollar, we sailed through with the help of an agency over there.

"It was quite a shock when Hayley mentioned the offer during a chat in the Budgen's store in Faringdon. We are very grateful to her help and are all looking forward to our new life."

The other recipient, the Stanford playgroup, was equally grateful.

Chairman Alyson Gibbens said: "We're replacing an awful lot of equipment, trampolines, new folding tables, and lots of bitty things, but it all needs doing.

"We are a charity-based playgroup and try to keep our fees to £5-£5.50p a session, instead of the average £12 charged by a private nursery.

"We would normally regard £2,500 as our target for one year, and we made this in one night! Everyone in the community will benefit from this, and we are so very grateful to Mrs Haines."

Graham Douglas, a partner in the estate agents, said: "I've lost count of the number of times we've done this over the years to help all kinds of good causes like sports clubs, churches and other charitable causes."

Mrs Haines said: "I knew Gary and Michelle were moving and wanted to sell their house. As we didn't have any immediate plans, I decided on impulse to give the selling services to them to help them out. I successfully bid for other things that night, so I came out loaded in one sense, although my pocket was lighter."