A FATHER-OF-TWO has launched an urgent fundraising campaign to help him fight cancer.

Forty-one-year old Daniel Briscoe was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on July 21 and then told the tumour was too big, and too close to major arteries, to operate on.

Daniel, who was raised on a family farm near Bramhope and recently moved from Otley to Skipton, was naturally devastated by the news.

But a new cancer treatment not currently available on the NHS, Nanoknife surgery, could offer him a lifeline - if he can raise the £15,000 needed to pay for it.

Daniel immediately set up a crowdfunding page and has been amazed with the generosity that's already been shown by friends, family and strangers - with £3,847 donated in under a week.

He told the Wharfedale & Aireborough Observer: "I've had amazing support from my friends and family, but it's all about the help from people who I don't know that will get me to my dream target."

Posting on his JustGiving page - justgiving.com/crowdfunding/daniel-briscoe - he added: "Don't know what to say, thank you all so much for donating and sharing.

"It's unbelievable to me to see this working, it's also given me a new found strength to fight even harder.

"Everyday gets a step closer to hopefully beating this and becoming one of the lucky ones!"

A father to two boys, Dalton aged four and Brodie aged six, Daniel has worked on farms most of his life, and taken on construction work.

He gives a powerful description of how he felt after hearing his diagnosis, and of his drive to survive, on his appeal page.

He said: "For those of you who don't know about pancreatic cancer it has the lowest survival rate of all cancers with only around five per cent of those diagnosed surviving for five years.

"I am only 41 years old. I have a loving wife and two sons aged four and six who I desperately want to see grow up and be a part of their lives.

"I had plans for a future with my family, a future where we would go camping and climbing mountains and have lightsaber fights in the park and I would teach them important 'dad' lessons like the rules of rugby and how to shave.

"I'm not ready to give up on that future, it is a future worth fighting for."

If he does reach his fundraising target Daniel, who has started hospital treatment, is planning to give any extra money that comes in to help raise awareness of pancreatic cancer.

He said: "It's a disease that is fast becoming one of the western hemisphere's biggest killers.

"It's so hard to detect early enough to save those who suffer from it."