In the 1980s she and her husband, Malcolm, lost everything when their Huddersfield textile business went under.

"We'd had a really nice lifestyle, a lovely home, a small baby and enjoyed the good things in life. Then suddenly it was all gone," recalls Karen.

The Weavings worked hard to save their business and even put their home up as personal guarantee.

"We had a good business and we were just so determined we would survive. But in the end we lost everything."

It is hard to imagine the Weavings hitting rock bottom as we sit in their plush 80-bed hotel, The Rendezvous in Skipton talking about Karen's amazing fund-raising efforts as the founder of Ribble Valley and White Rose Ladies, one of Cancer Research UK's most successful fund-raising groups.

Their ladies' lunches and glittering celebrity events are famous and have helped to raise more than £500,000 for children's cancer research in just nine years.

Karen and Malcolm, 20 years his wife's senior, are a testament to what hard work and determination can do in the face of adversity. With no real background in catering or the hospitality industry, other than organising events for a large company she worked for before she was married, Karen and baby Charlie uprooted and took over an 18-bed hotel on the Isle of Arran.

"Malcolm was living in a caravan in the yard of the textile mill in Huddersfield as he was winding it up, and he would travel every weekend the hundreds of miles to see us in Scotland.

"It was a very difficult time for Malcolm. He had lived in Huddersfield all his life and worked with his suppliers for donkey's years. But I think we are both positive people and believe that something will come along to help you."

And that's exactly what happened to the Weavings. After spotting an article in the Yorkshire Post about a couple from the region wanting to sell their hotel on Arran, a business contact of Malcolm's offered them a 100 per cent mortgage to buy the £80,000 business.

"He thought that we could really do it and we proved him right."

But it was a culture shock.

"I suppose it was running away," she says truthfully. "We'd had a really nice lifestyle and we knew that we could no longer afford to move in the circles we had done and so chose to leave.

"It was very hard work and very lonely. Every night I would go to bed broken- hearted, but we had to make it work."

Within three years, the Weavings sold the business for double what they paid for it and paid back their loan.

They moved to Perth and bought an inn. This six-bedroomed hotel was smaller but much more food-focused, turning over 1,500 meals a week. After seven years of successfully running the popular hotel, it was time for a much bigger challenge – Stirk House in Gisburn.

"We were desperate to come home," says Karen, who had also discovered that Charlie was severely dyslexic.

Stirk House was a rundown 52-bedroomed hotel and within seven years they turned the place around, selling it for £2m having paid £600,000 for it.

They contemplated retirement, but after two years the Weavings craved the challenges of running a hotel once again and in 2004 they bought the Rendezvous Hotel, known at the time as Hanover International, in Skipton.

They have converted two bedrooms into their own home and it is this that Karen believes has led to their success.

"We are very hands-on and the staff sees this. It's not just a job for us, it is our life. Malcolm still carves at many events and we attend many charity functions held here."

It is this attention to detail and dogged determination that has helped Ribble Valley and White Rose Ladies be
so successful and attract support from a wide variety of influential people.

Guest speakers to their events have included Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, Paul Burrell and Christine Hamilton. For the last three years, best-selling author (and Tara PT's sister) Santa Montefiore has been president.

She has just stepped down and her role is being taken on by Jana Khayat, chairman of Fortnum and Mason and daughter of Garry Weston, of Associated British Foods.

She has already hosted a number of fund-raising dinners for Ribble Valley and White Rose Ladies at Fortnum and Mason in London.

So how does Karen Weaving succeed in getting such influential people to support the Yorkshire and Lancashire fund-raisers?

"I suppose it's because I ask," says Karen, who writes personally to all the people she invites to speak or attend one of her events.

"They don't all say yes," she says, mentioning no names. "But I never let it get me down when they say 'no'. It makes me even more determined and I definitely get more yeses than nos. I scour the newspapers all the time looking for ideas and for people who might be entertaining speakers."

This Lancashire lass set up Ribble Valley and White Rose Ladies nine years ago, after she was approached by the then Cancer Research Campaign while running Stirk House, to bid to hold a charity ball. They won the bid, the event raised £10,000 and Karen was asked if she would run a regular ladies' luncheon club for CRC.

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