BEEFCAKE bodybuilding brothers Darren and Richard Bannaghan found a mighty powerful way of paying tribute to their late father by lugging heavy weights up and down Macclesfield's 108 Steps - 11 times!

Their dad, Chris, who once owned the famous Bannaghan's Gym in the town, often talked about his dream to carry a piano on his shoulders up the 4,752 stone staircase, but sadly he died on New Year's Eve in 2001 before he could achieve that ambition.

Then when their niece's son, Jamie, tragically died six months ago, just one month short of his second birthday, the brothers decided where they needed to put their muscle.

Each carrying eight stone in weight - the equivalent to an average young woman - the two men accomplished their feat, raising more than £2,000 for the Foundation of the Study of Infant Death (FSID).

Weightlifter turned window fitter Darren, 36, of Wilton Crescent, Macclesfield, and his 39-year-old brother Richard, who lives in Wilmslow, took on the bicep bursting challenge to raise funds for the charity in a two-hour event, each carrying two four-stone farmer's weights.

Their dad, Chris, himself a powerlifting world champion, would have been proud of them!

Former world junior powerlifting champion Darren, who lives and now trains at his home, said: "My family owned a gym so we've always been into training for years and our forte is strength.

"If you're going to raise money it's best to use something you're good at and the 108 steps is a well known feature in the town and people know how tough it is to walk up and down them, never mind when you're carrying things."

He added: "We'd been training for months for it, going up and down stairs and once or twice in situ. When we first went down there we only did two laps and if you told us then that we'd eventually do 11 each, I wouldn't have believed it.

"Me and my brother are training to do more and more things and at some stage in the future we might even have a go at carrying a piano up there."

The brothers, who have both now given up competition after winning British, European and world powerlifting titles in the past, told how doing the event together spurred them on.

"If one of us goes up, the other then feels obliged to do it," said Darren, who runs his own PVC windows company.

The 1990 and 1991 world champion revealed another benefit to the challenge, on top of the money they raised.

"When I started training for this I was just under 16 stone and when I finished training I was 13 stone," Darren said.