CHILDREN who lost their mother when she suffered a brain haemorrhage while heavily pregnant, have organised a sponsored run in her memory.

At the age of ten, Olivia Stead, her brother Joseph, then nine, and half-brother George then two, climbed into bed one night in 2001, eagerly looking forward to the imminent arrival of the baby their mum Tracey Lewis was expecting.

But in the morning the family woke to be told by ashen-faced adults that their 34-year-old mum had collapsed during the night at her home in Flemming Avenue, Leigh, and had been rushed to Southend Hospital, where she was in a deep coma.

Miss Stead said: “Mum had a violent headache, and that was it. My world just fell apart.

“We went to bed that night and were unaware of the horror that was unfolding as we slept.”

Doctors managed to save the baby by delivering the full-term tot via an emergency caesarean, before Tracey was transferred to the London Hospital in Whitechapel, East London.

The children were told they had a new sister, Lily Grace, who was being looked after in the special care baby unit at the hospital.

Their mum never recovered and died on July 4, 2001, the day after her daughter’s birth.

Lily stayed at the unit for a week as a precaution and while the devastated family made their funeral arrangements, Mrs Lewis’s organs were donated, following her wishes.

A pupil at Fairways primary school in Leigh, Lily, who is now almost ten, is already a talented runner and she is often picked to represent her school at athletics.

To say thanks for the care the little girl received there and to mark the decade after the tragedy, Olivia, Lily and maternal grandparents 66-year-old Jan and Roy Cooper, 70, are organising a sponsored run.

The couple, who live in the Belfairs area of Leigh, supported Mrs Lewis’s second husband Mark Lewis, a manager at Southend Waitrose, by helping to look after Lily and her brother George.

The fundraising event takes place on Saturday, June 25, from 11am until 1.30pm. It is being held from Chalkwell beach to the Kursaal, a distance of 2.7 miles.

Olivia is hoping to raise more than £1,000 for the unit.