A FATHER has told how his daughter died from cancer just six weeks after developing a slight cough.

Joanna – known as Jo – Lambe had just started a career as a planner at Worcester-based power firm npower on a scheme to make social housing more energy efficient when she fell ill.

The 26-year-old university graduate only started work there in September last year, before the sudden and rapid onset of cancer.

Now her colleagues are preparing to walk from the company’s offices in Swindon to Worcester, to raise funds in her memory.

Her father David Lambe described how “a little cough” on Boxing Day was the first sign of an aggressive tumour growing in her throat.

Despite chemotherapy and doctors at Worcestershire Royal Hospital placing Miss Lambe in an induced coma, they were unable to beat the tumour.

She died on Thursday, March 31, after her body started shutting down.

Miss Lambe, who lived with parents David and Judy and was born and bred in Ombersley was planning a move to Worcester to join her boyfriend Luke Weaver, a university student who plays rugby for Worcester Wanderers.

She was a former pupil of what was then the Alice Ottley School.

Doctors initially thought she had a chest infection, and she felt well enough to go on a family holiday but she got weaker while she was away, finding it increasingly hard to breathe.

Immediately on her return she had an X-ray, which revealed a large tumour.

Mr Lambe said: “She was just a determined girl and a wonderful daughter. We cannot believe it happened so quickly.

“When she first went into hospital after her first chemo treatment she said she wanted to come home saying she felt fine.

“But when the district nurse came round she sent her straight back to hospital.

“Me, Judy [Jo’s mother] and Luke basically lived in the hospital for the time she was in there.”

Colleagues at npower will start their walk on Friday and are due to arrive back on Monday, October 24.

Andrew Dagger, npower planning and performance manager and Miss Lambe’s former manager, is among the 13 walkers.

“We just felt like doing something for her, she was a lovely girl,” he said.

“It’s a testament to how many people want to do something to how well-liked she was in the short space of time she was with us.

“Nobody has a bad word to say about her.”

He said the team were trying to raise £4,900, which npower will then match pound-for-pound.

Miss Lambe’s family will then use the money to buy equipment for the Laurel ward at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, where she was treated.

To lend support visit justgiving.com/teams/jo-walk.