A YOUNG Bristol dancer has started a diploma at the college of his dreams thanks to help of Evening Post readers.

Last month we ran a story on 18-year-old Aaron Hatherall who had won a place at Stella Mann school but whose family were struggling to fund the course fees.

Now thanks to the generosity of dozens of readers, who donated more than £2,000, Aaron, from Brockworth Crescent, Stapleton, has taken the first steps to becoming a professional dancer.

The youngster has been dancing since he was six-years-old and performs hip hop to ballet and everything in between. After a disastrous 18 months where the family had been hit by fire, redundancy and ill health, there was good news when Aaron was offered a boy's scholarship at the prestigious Bedford dance school. But although a large percentage of the fees were covered money was still needed for costumes and accommodation.

His mother Sonia, 51, said: "It's been absolutely amazing and we really want to thank everyone. It has been a massive help, I had to pay the fees this week and I really didn't know how I was going to get the money.

"A teacher at Aaron's old primary school helped us by donating some items which were sold off and various people have given us cheques, including a lady who wanted to remain anonymous but who donated £1,000."

The funding was the icing on the cake for Aaron who has proven his skills after coming second at the recent World Hip Hop Championships in Blackpool, where he choreographed and performed a series of group dances.

He said: "I'm absolutely over the moon, I can't believe its all come together and I want to say a big thank you to everyone. The hip hop competition went really well. We made it through to the finals and it was really scary. It seemed like forever to find out how we did and they only ever call out the first six places, when it got to the last two to be named we started thinking we hadn't even come in the top six so it was amazing to get second.

"I've recently had the mumps so we've had our fair run of bad luck and now it's all coming together. I can't wait to start college in Bedford, its been my dream and I can't believe I'm finally going to make it happen."