A CHARITABLE foundation has donated £1m to a campaign to set up a specialist children’s cancer research facility in the North-East.

Dame Margaret Barbour, chairman of South Shields-based global clothing brand Barbour, announced the major Barbour Foundation gift at a fundraising event hosted in Newcastle last night (Friday, September 19) by author Bill Bryson to raise funds for the Future Fund campaign.

The Future Fund aims to raise £5.5m to create the Newcastle University Centre for Childhood Cancer, a state-of-the-art facility where the city’s academics and clinicians can advance and accelerate the children’s cancer research and treatment that has already earned them international recognition.

It is a joint project which involves the university, the North of England Children’s Cancer Research (NECCR) charity and Newcastle Hospitals’ Great North Children’s Hospital (GNCH) – home to one of the UK’s leading centres for paediatric oncology.

Dame Margaret Barbour, who is a patron of the Future Fund, said: “Treatment of childhood cancer has been one of the success stories of modern medicine, but there is still further progress to be made. The Future Fund campaign will enable this progress to move on to the next level. I am extremely proud to be associated with this vital work.”

The donation brings the total raised by the Future Fund to £1.7m since its launch just 11 weeks ago and endorsement from North-East heroes including Sting and Mark Knopfler .

Professor Josef Vormoor, director of the Northern Institute for Cancer Research at Newcastle University (NICR), who is leading the Future Fund campaign, said he was overwhelmed by the donation.

He said: “The Barbour Foundation is renowned for the incredible work it does to help good causes in the region and we are extremely grateful to receive its support. “

Dame Margaret visited the children’s cancer ward at the GNCH to meet some of the patients who stand to benefit from the work of the Future Fund. She heard first-hand of the experience of ten-year-old Mary Dafter of Benwell, Newcastle, who is currently fighting a rare form of cancer with the help of clinicians at the GNCH and researchers at the University.

Mary’s mother, Emma, said: “It is so important to learn what we can about childhood cancer because this knowledge will help other children in the future. In fact it’s only because of the research on children ten or 20 years ago that doctors know how to treat children like Mary as well as they do now.”

For information about the Future Fund please visit futurefund.co.uk