A BRAVE teenager who fought back from cancer to help others has been honoured with a national award.

Sixteen-year-old Vicky Garbett was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2000 and spent more than 18 months battling the disease. Vicky Garbett, who has helped raise money for other young people affected by cancer.

Not only has she managed to recover - despite severe side-effects from chemotherapy - but she has also helped raise money for other people in a similar situation.

As a tribute to her "outstanding courage and achievement", she was presented with the coveted Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Award for Young People last week at Bewdley High School where she has just finished her education.

The award scheme was set up in April 2000 and every UK secondary school is invited to nominate a pupil.

She was the inspiration for the school's cancer week in May, which culminated in a bandanna day where pupils bought the headgear - used to hide hair loss in cancer sufferers - and raised almost £350 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

It is a new national charity which pays for wards in hospitals specifically for teenagers with cancer, so they can spend time with people their own age.

Vicky, who did not even know her name had been put forward, said: "I was really shocked to get it, but I'm really proud. It's brilliant.

"I wanted to help because I just realised what other teenagers with cancer were going through."

Mum Denise, of Plimsoll Street, Kidderminster, is full of admiration. "She was very, very ill. At one time she didn't get out of Birmingham Children's Hospital for 13 weeks.

"They've taken the tibia out of her right leg and moved the fibula forward, so she's only got one bone in that leg. The chemotherapy has damaged her kidneys and her hearing but she's just fought through it and then gone on to raise money for other people.

"I'm quite sure I wouldn't have managed it."

Vicky is now planning a glad rags day for staff at Matalan in Kidderminster, where she now works, for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

And Bewdley High School will hold a cancer week in aid of the trust again next year.