A teenage girl who has suffered from ME since she was eight years old, has put all her efforts this year into raising money for a charity which helps young people battling the illness.

Along with a group of friends Rachel Whitehead, a Year 9 Abbeyfield School student, has raised more than £1,700 for AYME, The Association for Young People with ME, since the middle of May.

The cash was raised through bag packing, car washing, cake sales and a 25- mile sponsored cycle around the Castle Combe race track, which took all of Rachel’s energy to complete.

Her mum Julie visited Abbeyfield for a special assembly where the cheque was presented. She said: “I am very proud of what she has done this year, especially the cycle ride, which considering how ill Rachel was at the time was amazing for her to take part in. All of this has been done by a group of 13 and 14-year-olds with very little adult help, and it just shows what they can do.”

Rachel was diagnosed with ME five years ago, and as a result of the illness was too weak to go to school for her first two years at Abbeyfield.

Mrs Whitehead said: “She has only been back at school this year.

“These are new friends of hers, and they have been really supportive. They all piled into our house to plan what they could do to help, and this was the result.

“It was completely driven by them. They wrote to all the people involved and even stood up in front of the whole school at a special assembly during ME awareness week.