For two weeks Alan Witherden lived with the thought he could be one of the 250 men diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK every year.

It was a distressing period, during which he spent some time thinking about the treatment he may have to have.

Thankfully, Mr Witherden didn’t have cancer, but his experience led him to raise £350 for the Peggy Wood Foundation, which provides breast cancer equipment.

Mr Witherden, 53, of Tonbridge Road, Maidstone, went to see the emergency doctor with a sharp pain down one side of his chest last year.

“I thought I had pulled a muscle,” he said.

“When I went back to my regular doctor they referred me to the breast clinic at Maidstone Hospital.

“As a man you do not expect to hear that you need to visit a breast care centre. I just thought they would say it was an infection.”

The Peggy Wood Breast Care Centre at Maidstone Hospital is named after Peggy Wood, who died in 2006 but began fund-raising for cancer equipment in Kent after her grandson was diagnosed with leukaemia in 1981.

A mammogram and a needle biopsy showed up a lump in Mr Witherden’s chest. It was two weeks later he was told that the biopsy had shown the lump was a benign cyst and he had another biopsy to remove it.

He added: “I was shocked to find out that most of the equipment in the Peggy Wood centre was provided by the Peggy Wood Foundation.

“I thought it would come from the government and I didn’t know anything about the charity.”

Mr Witherden, who is on the committee of the Westborough Club in Tonbridge Road, decided to hold different fund-raising events, which culminated in a barbecue and fun day at the club on August bank holiday.

The charity plans to use his £350 towards another £200,000 mammography scanner at the centre, which will double the number of people who can be scanned for suspected cancer.

Bryn Annis, chairman of the Peggy Wood Foundation, said: “We are hoping to have enough for the scanner by Christmas.

“Fund-raising like Alan’s is invaluable to the charity.”