A MOTHER whose son was one of the Alder Hey organ scandal babies today praised the idea behind a memorial service in Liverpool -- but said she was too upset to attend herself.

Wendy Bury's son, Carl Michael Broderick, died in 1982 less than two weeks after his first birthday.

His family discovered two years ago that his heart, windpipe and oesophagus had been kept without their consent or knowledge.

Hundreds of families who were similarly affected by the Alder Hey organs retention scandal attended a memorial service in Liverpool's Anglican cathedral on Saturday for an ecumenical service entitled Honouring the Memory.

Wendy, 40, of Union Road, Oswaldtwistle, said: "I think it is a lovely idea but I just couldn't attend myself as I couldn't cope with going back to where he actually died.

"The cathedral was one of the landmarks that I looked for when I was drove to see him. It would have been too painful to go back."

Wendy and her three children Della, 18, Kiel, 16, and Cherry, 12, discussed the matter but agreed as a family not to go.

She added: "For a lot of other families this service will have brought comfort but I find comfort in my children and spending quiet time remembering Carl.

"He is in our heads 24 hours a day seven days a week. We keep him alive with our memories. Obviously, the children never met him but we still talk about him and they do feel like they have lost their big brother."

Another family, whose daughter Sophie died at the age of 10 months in January 1993, 24 hours after heart surgery at the hospital, was unable to attend the service.

Jane and Peter Morris, of Cliviger, were forced to hold a second funeral service last year after it emerged that the hospital had kept Sophie's heart and other organs.

A government-ordered investigation was launched into the events at renowned Liverpool children's hospital after stockpiles of organs were discovered in a university laboratory.

And many families were forced to undergo second and even third funerals after learning that doctors had secretly stripped organs from their dead children.

Dutch pathologist and cot death expert Professor Dick van Velzen was singled out for criticism and the inquiry team recommended that he never be allowed to practise again.

The service on Saturday was led by the Right Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, the Most Reverend Patrick Kelly, Archbishop of Liverpool, and Moderator of the URC Mersey Synod, the Rev Graham Cook.

Cards bearing the names of children being remembered at the service were laid on the high altar of the cathedral and families and friends were invited to light a candle honouring the young people who died at the Merseyside hospital.

After the service members of family support group Pity II, set up in the wake of the scandal, released some 600 balloons outside the cathedral's West Door.