A FUNDRAISING evening is being held in Lowestoft in memory of a little girl who died just four days after she was born.

Tamzin Skillings's arrival at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital last month should have been a source of joy and celebration.

But when her mother, Joanne Kane, suffered complications during labour, medical staff discovered that the umbilical cord had become tangled around Tamzin's neck while she was in the womb, and shewas born with severe brain damage.

Joanne, 31, and her partner, Lee Skillings, 29, then faced an agonising few days before they came to the heartbreaking decision to allow doctors to switch off their daughter's life support machine.

That decision ended her life less than a week before Christmas.

After Tamzin's burial at Lowestoft Cemetery, Joanne's sister Jennifer, 27, decided that something positive should be done to ensure that her short life was commemorated, and so she began planning a fundraising event in her memory.

With help from friends, she has organised an evening of music at the Royal Standard pub in Denmark Road a week tomorrow, January 22, with the proceeds going to East Anglia's Children's Hospices (EACH) and the intensive care baby unit at the Norfolk and Norwich.

'This Christmas was a terrible time for obvious reasons,' said Jennifer.

'Joanne and Lee went through such a traumatic time.

'I can't imagine what it must have been like having to come to that decision to turn off the Tamzin's life support machine.'

She added: 'Throughout this time I felt pretty useless and just wanted to do something to help, something positive, so that's where the idea of the fundraising event came from.

'The main beneficiary of the money will be EACH, but we're also going to make a donation to the intensive baby care unit at the Norfolk and Norwich because the staff there were fantastic.'

Jennifer, of Wollaston Road, Lowestoft, is studying at Lowestoft College as part of the first year of a biology degree with the University of East Anglia.

She originally moved to the area from the west Midlands with Joanne, who lived previously in Stanford Street, Lowestoft, before moving to Norwich with her 12-year-old son Brandon to share a home with Lee.

The fundraising event will get under way at 8pm, and the entertainment will include karaoke and a disco.

There will be a buffet and a raffle with prizes that include tickets to Pleasurewood Hills and to see Lowestoft Town FC.