GENEROUS Blackburn people, touched by the plight of John Mark Riding, the former Lancashire Evening Telegraph baby of the year with a rare brain tumour, have helped raise more than £1,000 to get him to America for life saving treatment.

Readers have flooded the family with offers of help after we revealed four-year-old John Mark needed to be flown to the USA for treatment when doctors in Britain were able to offer him only chemotherapy.

John Mark, who was the newspaper's baby of the year in 1998, has a rare brain stem glioma, which doctors in Britain say is only treatable with radiotherapy.

They have told the family he could have just three months to live. The family has estimated it needs £100,000 to fly John to the New York Children's Hospital, where he could have pioneering drug treatment in January, if he is well enough to travel. The money raised by local people will be put into a special fund set up by the family, the John Mark Riding Fund.

John Mark, whose father, John Riding lives in Blackburn, started his six-week course of chemotherapy at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol this week. He will stay in hospital until the course is finished and is due to go home on December 24.

His parents, John and Jacqueline Sanderson, who separated three years ago, are staying in hospital accommodation in Bristol to be near while he has the treatment.

The funds raised for John Mark's trip have been raised through everything from office collections to sponsored swims and personal donations.

Kerry Riding, from Audley, John Mark's grown-up half-sister, said: "He has had a few good days lately and hasn't seemed too bad. We'll have to see how he gets on with the chemotherapy."

She thanked everyone who had helped so far, including Maureen Riding and customers at the Lidgett Hotel, Great Harwood; the Robin Hood pub; Admiral Printers; Khalid Mahmood; Debbie and Dave at the William Street chip shop; Lancashire Timber; Gilbraith's; Mercy Avery; arm wrestling champion Neil Pickup; Butlins; Halfords and Martin and Tracy Robertson.

She said she had also written to Janet Anderson MP, who had pledged to lobby on the family's behalf to get John Mark's treatment in America paid for through the NHS.

A group of family friends will be staging a sponsored bike ride on Saturday , starting from Blackburn and ending at Land's End, near John Mark's new home in Cornwall.

If you would like to donate to the fund contact 01254 580827.