Friends Jayne Jones and Jean Beck organised the event and invited Warwick Hospital's gynae-oncology clinical nurse specialist Tina Sunderland to take part.

Around 500 leaflets about the disease - which Mrs Beck, 61, is fighting and Mrs Jones's sister Carol Millsopp died from aged 39 - were handed out to shoppers and a total of £839 was taken in donations over Mothering Sunday weekend.

Mrs Jones said: "It went really well. I was amazed at the amount of women who spoke to me that knew someone who had had ovarian cancer.

"It is called the silent killer because there is no test for it and women are not aware of the symptoms. If it is caught early, there is a 95 per cent survival rate, but at the stage it is normally diagnosed that is reduced to 15 per cent.

"The Eve Appeal is funding research into effective screening techniques and that is why we are raising money for it. We would like to say a huge thank you to Boots, TW Printing in Leamington for doing all the posters and for the donations from Marshalls Cleaning Supplies."