A GRIEVING husband today told how his 30-year-old wife lost her battle against cancer two weeks before their first wedding anniversary.

Heidi and Jason Clark were married on the romantic Greek island of Rhodes last summer and moved into their dream home in Altham West two months ago with their eighteen-month-old daughter Charlotte.

Mr Clark spoke of his wife's courage after stomach cancer which was diagnosed in February. Mr Clark, 28, of Wittlewood Drive, said: "She was immensely brave and fought right up to the last minute.

"We sort of knew before we were told. She had been quite ill but we did not know what the matter was. She had all these different sorts of tests and nothing was shown up, but we both had an inkling it was serious."

Determined to fight, his wife began chemotherapy treatment at the Christie Hospital, Manchester.

Mr Clark, an engineer at Stealth Precision Components, Burnley, said: "We asked her, and the specialists asked her, if she wanted to come off chemotherapy and she point blank refused. She wanted to fight."

After going in for an overnight stay her condition deteriorated and she died peacefully at the hospital.

Mr Clark had stayed at his wife's bedside, only leaving to bring their daughter to see her.

Mr Clark said: "Charlotte gave her a kiss and said 'Bye bye mummy'. We all think she had been hanging on until she had seen Charlotte. She was the most wonderful and fantastic mother." Heidi had found new happiness with Jason after her former fianc, John Charlesworth, of Accrington, was killed in a car crash at Rising Bridge in 1993.

Despite his wife's illness, Mr Clark was determined they should move into their new house which they had watched being built.

He said: "There were only three things she ever wanted out of life, a husband, a child and her own house.

"I wanted to give her all of them before anything happened."

Mrs Clark's parents, Liz and Ian Shand, live in Blackburn, and she also leaves three sisters, Michaela, Kirsty and Emma.

A former pupil at Billinge High School, Blackburn, she worked as an assistant at the Post Office shop in Blackburn and previously as a manageress at the Nelson and Blackburn Super Cig shops.

She played in the ladies' darts league in Blackburn for both the Brownhill Arms and Thwaites Arms.

The couple previously lived with Mr Clark's parents in Whitecroft View, Baxenden.

Her funeral will be be held on Monday at St John's Church, Baxenden, where their daughter was christened, followed by burial at Dill Hall Cemetery.

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