ALL that seven-year-old Annabel Lally wants to do is go to school.

According to her mother Lorrain, the seven-year-old has always loved going to lessons and playing and learning with her friends.

But Annabel has been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a life-threatening form of cancer, and has been too ill to join her friends at Windale Primary School, in Blackbird Leys, Oxford, in recent months.

Annabel, who lives with her family in Nightingale Avenue, was first diagnosed with the condition when she was just 18 months old.

When she was four-and-a-half and ready to go to school she was given the all-clear, but the cancer returned last year.

Mrs Lally, 38, described the moment she and husband Michael were first told their daughter had cancer.

She said: “I felt like the doctor had jumped up and with both feet, kicked me in the chest.

“I can’t think of any other way to describe it. I could feel myself breathing in, but not breathing out. We were just completely stunned.”

She added: “It’s hard for Annabel, because all she wants to do is go to school. It’s rare to hear a child say that, but that’s all she wants.

“Her outreach teacher has started drawing little faces and writing the names of her friends on pieces of paper, which she positions around the table for her, which seems to have helped, but it’s not the same.”

Annabel attends weekly appointments at the Churchill Hospital in Headington.

She has also undergone a bone marrow transplant and has spent months being treated at Oxford Children’s Hospital and the Bristol Children’s Hospital, where she underwent a course of chemo- therapy and radiotherapy.

To thank the doctors and nurses who are helping her daughter, Mrs Lally has decided to take part in a sponsored 100ft abseil from the roof of the John Radcliffe Hospital Women’s Centre.

The event, in aid of the Children’s Hospital, takes place on Sunday, September 19.

Mrs Lally said: “When Annabel goes up there for treatment, she never wants to leave. She always wants to stay and play.

“I hope to raise as much money as I can, but for me it’s more about raising awareness for the place itself. They’re just amazing.”

Sarah Vaccari, a spokesman for the Churchill Hospital’s charitable funds team, said: “It’s thanks to people like Lorrain we’re able to make a huge difference to the thousands of children we see at the hospital each year.”

  • Oxford United chairman Kelvin Thomas is looking forward to enjoying views out across the city when he takes the plunge next month to help the Children’s Hospital.

Mr Thomas said he was looking joining dozens of other daredevils, including Mrs Lally, for the abseil next month.

He added: “There are 65,000 children who benefit from the Children’s Hospital each year and we’re very proud to help in any way we can.

“They tell me you get a great view across Oxford from the roof, but I had never really considered lowering myself off it.

“But it’s such a great cause that I will happily abseil down it.

“I hope the club’s fans get behind this and maybe raise a team to join me, or at least pledge a little money towards the Children’s Hospital.”

  • If you would like to take part in next month’s abseil, call 01865 743444 for an application form or download one from the link below.