A marathon of biblical proportions has been completed in every sense of the word.

Young people from St Francis Church in Valley Park, Chandler's Ford have read the Bible from cover to cover.

Members of the youth and junior church groups read on a rota system, some just about wriggling out of their sleeping bags when their "slot" fell in the small hours.

They started at 7.15pm on Maundy Thursday, reading the whole Bible though day and night, with the aim of finishing triumphantly on Easter Day.

A church spokesman said: "During the marathon we noted every mention of the word love by pinning a kiss to a bare wooden cross as a symbol of God's love.

"By 6.30pm on Easter Day, with the church full of people who had come to hear and celebrate the final words, the cross was covered in hundreds of kisses and had become a thing of beauty, transformed by God's love."

Some children were sponsored for their reading.

They raised more than £1,000 for the Utugi Children's Home in Kenya which will be visited by some of the young people over the Christmas holiday