A CHARITY evening will be held tonight in honour of a teenage girl who suffers from a rare form of cancer.

Jam 4 Jade is being staged by family and friends of 15-year-old Jade Telford, from The Grove, near Consett , County Durham.

She is undergoing surgery to treat a malignant phyllodes tumor, a large, fast-growing cancer that does not respond to either chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

The Consett Academy pupil, who was diagnosed in May, is believed to be the youngest person in the country to be treated for the condition.

Doctors have said she will never have the all-clear and will have to undergo regular full body scans for the rest of her life to make sure it has not returned.

She said: “It is really rare and doesn’t happen often in mature women, so why it would happen in youth is something I am really confused about as my body is not fully mature yet.

“It is getting easier though, now I understand more about it and it does not faze me so much now.”

Jam 4 Jade is being held at The Grove and Moorside Working Men’s Club, near Consett, from 6pm. It features live music by local bands – including her grandmother, former Blondie tribute singer Marianne Bailey, 51, from Consett.

Ms Bailey said: “I am very nervous, not having done anything for a lot of years, but the only thing I know is music, so when they were talking about this, Jade said ‘Come on Nan, you have got to get up there and do something’.”

All money raised will be split between children’s cancer charity Clic Sargeant and Fight All Cancers Together.

Jade’s half-sister’s mother, Vicky O’Hagan, 28, from Medomsley, is having her shoulder-length hair shaved off as part of the Fun Razor section of the evening.

She added: “Jade is so inspirational. She is so strong and has not let it get the better of her, so I wanted to do something to support her.”

Australian singer Steve Kilbey, of The Church, wrote a charity track, A Song For Jade, after Mrs Bailey contacted him through Facebook. It is available for download at http://stevekilbey.

bandcamp.com/album/a-song-forjade Jade said: “I am quite excited and overwhelmed by it. I was like ‘wow’ but I have heard and like it.

It is really good.”