Charlotte with brother LeighTHE family of Trowbridge schoolgirl Charlotte Wakeham at last has something to celebrate after her aunt gave birth to a baby girl this week and named her Kayla Charlotte in memory of her niece.

Eight-year-old Charlotte lost her brave battle against cancer in September.

Her aunt Vicki Fonteyne, 28, gave birth to 6lb 6oz Kayla at 4am on Tuesday.

Charlotte's grandmother Wendy Bryant spent Christmas in hospital after suffering two heart attacks on Christmas Eve but is over the moon to become a granny again and said the arrival of little Kayla was just what the family needed to cheer them up after a miserable year.

She said: "When I woke up in hospital on Tuesday I had a message on my phone and it was the baby crying.

That was the best message I have ever had.

"It is so lovely for us to have some good news to start the New Year with."

Ms Bryant went back home to Devizes on Tuesday evening and is under doctors orders to take it easy.

She said: "I am alright, but I am going to have to make some big changes in my lifestyle.

"I had everything planned, done and finished on Christmas Eve and then had terrible pains in my arms. My partner Steve knew what was happening and called an ambulance straight away.

"I suppose I am not surprised after the year we have had that my health has suffered but it has come as a real shock.

"For Charlotte's parents, Bill and Alison, it was a strange Christmas without her and I hated not being able to be with them."

When the schoolgirl was first diagnosed with a rare brain tumour in June 2002, her family set up the Charlotte's Chance of Life fund and since her death have carried on fundraising to pay for respite care and research for families in the same situation.

Staff at Just The Thing, in Castle Place, Trowbridge, donated around £30 in tips collected over the Christmas period to the charity.

Tracey Hedges, who works at the gift shop, said: "We gift-wrapped a box and left it by the till and customers put their tips in there if they were happy with the service.

"It is not an awful lot of money but we decided we did not need it and wanted it to go towards something meaningful. We had all read Charlotte's story in the Wiltshire Times and her family have been through so much that we wanted to help in any way we could."