A TODDLER will be representing three generations of her family when she takes part in a fundraising event this summer.

Ella Curtis, who will be two in July, is to walk around the 5km Race for Life course in Brighton with her mother Helen.

It is being done in memory of the grandmother the toddler never met, who died from cancer shortly before Ella was born.

Mrs Curtis’s mother Catherine Tibbott, 65 who lived in Scaynes Hill with her husband, Richard, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October 2014.

The former teacher at the village primary school had suffered weight loss and pains in her stomach and spent two months undergoing tests.

Mrs Curtis, 33, from Haywards Heath, said: I remember terrible weeks waiting to find out which treatment would work.

“My two brothers came back from their homes abroad and we were all together as a family when mum started her first course of chemotherapy just before Christmas”.

Scans initially indicated the tumours had stopped growing but the cancer had spread to her liver and tests after a second course of chemotherapy confirmed the treatment had stopped working.

Helen added: “We had been warned it would only work for so long and mum was told just before her 65th birthday there was nothing more they could do for her.

Mrs Tibbott died on April 21, 2014.

Mrs Curtis found out she was expecting her first child just after her mum was diagnosed.

She said: “It was lovely to be able to give her some good news and something to fight for.

“I knew deep down she would never meet Ella who was born a few weeks later.

“It is a sad story because she did not survive, but thanks to research and new treatments she was given six precious months, long enough to know I was expecting a daughter who would be called Ella Catherine.

“She got to see scans of Ella and to feel her kick and that meant the world to us both.

“I was amazingly strong because of my pregnancy.

“I felt I was looking after mum’s legacy. I wanted her to experience everything with me during the pregnancy and I speak to Ella every day about her.”

Mrs Curtis, a senior manager of Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life events in East and West Sussex, said the Brighton was the ideal venue for Ella to take part.

She said: “If Ella can do it, you can too.”

Mrs Curtis is now calling on other mums, daughters and grandmothers to sign up for one of the Sussex events at raceforlife.org or by calling 0300 123 0770.