AN Upton Rotary Club member touched by the plight of a young leukaemia patient is hoping to organise bone marrow donor sessions in the town.

Ray Bird, from Ripple, needs to find 25 Upton people aged between 18 and 40 willing to donate bone marrow before the sessions can go ahead.

He decided to get invol-ved after reading about 15-year-old Laura Edwards, from Leckhampton, who desperately needed to find a donor for a bone marrow transplant.

When he offered to be tested as a donor, he was told he was too old.

"I said to the Rotary Club why don't we see if we can set something up and it all started from that."

"Unfortunately donors have to be aged between 18 and 25 and that discounts almost everyone in the club."

Laura has now found a donor but Mr Bird is still committed to setting up the donor sessions to try to help other cancer patients.

"She was only given until March to live - it was getting pretty urgent," he said. "There must be a lot of other people in the area who need bone marrow transplants but I just don't know of them."

Bone Marrow charity, the Anthony Nolan Trust, will hold the sessions when he has found 25 people willing to sign up as donors.

When people come forward Mr Bird will send them more information. He said donating bone marrow was not as simple as giving blood and donors need to be sure.

Anyone interested should contact Mr Bird on 01684 592740.