NEARLY £1million raised for charity, a special celebrity ambassador and thousands of happy walkers...not bad for an event dreamed up in the back of a car.

Southend’s annual Colour-thon returned for its fifth year, with more than 1,200 brightly-dressed participants making their way around a moonlit 13-mile course on Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday morning.

Adding some stardust to the proceedings was Rachel Riley, number-whizz from TV’s Countdown game show, who led walkers off from Chalkwell Park.

The event allows participants to walk for the charity of their choice and raised £650,000 for good causes in its first four years.

This year’s event was such a huge success, the running total is expected to near the £1million mark by the time all the sponsorship money has been collected.

The Colourthon was thought up by Southend Round Table’s fundraising group and has since won international acclaim.

One of its founders, Julian Hart, said: “It all came from three of us having a chat in the back of a car on our way up to Birmingham one day.

“We wanted to provide an umbrella event for all those fantastic smaller charities which don’t have the manpower to organise their own fundraising.

“The idea was hatched then and it’s gone fantastically well ever since.”

More than 220 charities will stand to gain from this weekend’s event.

As darkness fell, a team of more than 100 stewards was out on the course, which started at Chalkwell Park, winding through Westcliff, along Southend seafront, back to Old Leigh and finishing back in the park.

Each participant is given a brightly coloured t-shirt, from which the event gets its name, though many accessorised their outfits with outlandish fancy dress.

The rules strictly prohibit running, but the quickest participants were back in the park within a knee-aching three hours.

Sean Markham, 22, who works on the stroke unit in Southend Hospital and raising funds for the Stroke Association, was first back, in 2hrs 29mins.

Mr Markham, of Elmsleigh, Leigh, said: “It was just getting dark when I finished. It’s not supposed to be a race, but I’m very competitive.

“I’m pretty tall and I’ve got long legs, so I suppose it made it easier for me.”

Earlier on Saturday hundreds of youngsters took part in their own afternoon Junior Colourthon, seeing how many laps of Chalkwell Park’s rose garden they could complete in two hours.