A long-standing reader of a newspaper focused on disability issues has left £25,000 to the title in her will – thereby saving it from potential closure.

Last autumn the charity that runs Merseyside’s All Together Now! newspaper voiced serious fears for its future, due to rising production costs and less funding.

But the title’s short-term future has now been secured after the news that it had been named as a beneficiary in a will.

Former headteacher Pat Lowe, pictured, left £25,000 to support the work of the free newspaper.

Pat, who died last year aged 94, was an avid reader of the paper and a long-standing friend of editor Tom Dowling, who set up the title 19 years ago.

Tom told the Liverpool Echo: “This is an enormous boost to morale and coffers. While it doesn’t completely get us out of the woods, it certainly gives us hope and should keep us going that extra bit longer.”

“I first met Pat 50 years ago. As an adventurous teenager, I’d been inspired by her many epic journeys reported in the local newspapers.

“She was not long back from an expedition to Kathmandu that took in a 360-mile mountain trek to the Everest base camp – the very same trip me and my three friends were planning.

“When I told her of our plans, she immediately invited us for tea at her home in Upton, Chester, providing us with trayfuls of scones and guides full of vital information about what lay in store for us.”

Sadly Tom and his friends fell victim to a roadside ambush in Iran which a bullet lodged between Tom’s shoulder blades, paralysing him from the chest down for life.

Added Tom: “For whatever reason, Pat did not hear what happened to us.  But fast forward 40 years and our paths were to cross again. This time she’d read about All Together Now! in an article by the Echo’s former associate editor Walter Huntley – and put two and two together.”

When Pat’s own health began to deteriorate, she became a reader and supporter of the newspaper.

Tom added: “Pat constantly reminded me of the importance of the paper: ‘People just don’t realise that even the fittest of us become disabled at some time,’ she’d say.

“‘That’s why we can’t afford to lose this newspaper. It is so vital for people like me who are not online. It’s my lifeline.’ “