BBC Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark is urging people to lend their support to a new Maggie's Centres fundraising campaign themed on togetherness around the humble kitchen table.

The inaugural Maggie's Kitchen Table Day, which will take place on February 26, was launched by Ms Wark over Scrabble and scones in Glasgow.

Ms Wark, who is honorary patron of Maggie's Glasgow, was joined by Gordon Gorman, whose wife Margaret died of cancer, and Brian Harris, whose treatment for lung cancer has seen him become a regular visitor to the centre since 2011.

"The kitchen table has a special place at the heart of every Maggie's Centre as a place where people come together to laugh, cry, share stories, remember friends, and make plans or perhaps to say nothing at all," she said.

The Maggie's Kitchen Table Day initiative endeavours to get as many people as possible to come up with their own fun ideas such as craft and cocktails, juice and jigsaws or fancy dress fish and chips.

"Whatever you decide to do, Maggie's Kitchen Table Day is a chance to get together with family, friends and colleagues, to celebrate, talk and have fun, all in aid of Maggie's and the vital support the charity offers to people affected by cancer," said Ms Wark.

In May 1993, founder Maggie Keswick Jencks was told her breast cancer had returned and she was given less than three months to live.

Ms Jencks talked to her medical team at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, about creating a place, in an old stable block in the hospital grounds, which would help their patients with the non-medical problems of living with cancer.

She died in June 1995, but the first Maggie's Centre opened at the hospital just over a year later.

Ms Wark has been involved since opening an extension at Maggie's Edinburgh in 2000 and regularly hosts high-profile events in aid of the charity.

Her father, James, died of lung cancer in 1994 and Ms Wark has witnessed first-hand the profound impact a cancer diagnosis can have on those affected by the disease and their loved ones.

Her own plan for Maggie's Kitchen Table Day is to host a pot luck supper where everyone brings along a surprise dish and makes a donation.

"I might make a beef bourguignon or shepherd's pie and, as long as it is washed down with good wine, it will be fine," she said. "It doesn't need to be fancy – it is about kitchen table cooking."