FIVE swimmers are paying tribute to a special little girl next week on what would have been her fifth birthday.

The courage of cancer victim Meg Lockey, from Bishop Auckland, has inspired her family and friends to raise money for the hospital which battled vainly for her life.

Meg endured 18 months of chemotherapy as she fought Burkitt's Lymphoma, a type of non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, only to die in January 2001.

Yesterday, her mother, Lisa, grandmother Lynne Wiseman and friends Andrea Loades, Claire Robinson and Joanne Lambert will each swim a mile in Meg's memory at the Glenholme Leisure Complex in Crook.

They will all wear her favourite colour, purple, as they raise money for Ward 16 at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary to thank consultant Kevin Winderbank and his staff.

Mrs Lockey, 29, who has a boy Andrew, aged three, said last night: "Meg was a special little girl. She was wise and funny and she gave us lots of wonderful memories.

"She was very brave and never complained. She was a proper little girl who loved ballet and other things.

"Until the end we never gave up hope that she would live. Yet at the same time I always had a sense that she would not make it. She was too special to stay."

During Meg's illness, Mrs Lockey and her husband Stephen packed as much as possible into her life, taking her to Disneyland in Paris, Blackpool and to see the Nutcracker at Darlington.

They marked the anniversary of her death on January 8 with a trip on her favourite train to York.

Anyone wanting to donate to the fund can contact the leisure centre on (01388) 763204 or write to 2 Tamworth Close, Bishop Auckland, DL14 0RN.