Shropshire cancer battler off to swim with dolphins

A 10-year-old Shropshire girl who was diagnosed with cancer at the the age of just nine months is going on the trip of a lifetime to swim with dolphins thanks to the fundraising efforts of a Whitchurch woman.

Despite having never met each other, Sandy Bebbington, 40, decided to raise funds for the Starlight Children's Foundation after her own daughter spent time in hospital.

In a recent fundraising trip to Borneo, she raised more than £3,500, which will be used to send Grace Davies-Friend, from Shrewsbury, to Orlando in November.

Starlight grants seriously and terminally ill children a once-in-a-lifetime wish and provides entert- ainment for children in hospitals and hospices throughout the UK.

Grace's dad, Martyn Davies-Friend, said: "She was nine-months-old when she was diagnosed. She has been off treatment for eight years but because of her age she couldn't have a Starlight wish at the time.

"She was put forward for it last year. The hospital put her forward which was quite nice."

He said Grace still has hospital appointments with the oncologist at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

He added she is really excited about swimming with dolphins and added his huge thanks to Sandy.

Mrs Bebbington, a theatre nurse at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, travelled to Borneo in May where she did a two-day trek to reach the summit of Mount Kinabalu, two days cycling through the Crocker Mountain Range and did white water rafting.