Lily Walkingshaw, who organised the whole of her Henry Bloom Noble primary school to run a ‘Relay for Life’, has personally raised £510 for the charity Cancer Research UK.

More donations from the rest of the school groups are expected to be announced after TT.

Lily spoke at her school assembly about how cancer has affected her family, having lost her aunt, former mayor of Douglas Debbie Pitts, to lung cancer in 2020, her mother Nicola having had it twice, and her great aunt having also recently suffered from it.

And her grandmother, Dot, who was also mayor of Douglas, died of cancer in 2010.

Cancer Research UK local event organiser Debbie Williamson said that it was the biggest fundraising event which an island school had done for the charity.

She added that it also marks the first school in the island to have held a sponsored race for the charity, with the hope that its Race For Life for schools programme, already in the UK, could also be rolled out across the island.

Year round runs for the charity are held at the NSC.

The children at the school ran the relay in groups of three or four, with teams aiming to run for a total of around 24 minutes.

Debbie talked about the enthusiasm with which the children sprinted off at the beginning, and though many slowed down after about two minutes, they continued to skip or walk after that.

Nicola explained how Lily had been fundraising since she was three weeks old, having been pushed around her first sponsored relay race in a pram.

People can still donate to Lily’s fundraiser by searching for ‘Cancer Research relay for life Isle of Man’, clicking ‘Donate to a relay’ and then searching for ‘Lily Walkingshaw’.