A DESPERATE mother has made a passionate plea for the public to come forward today to become potential bone marrow donors.

The Anthony Nolan Trust is hosting a recruitment clinic in Middlesbrough to find volunteers with tissue types that could match leukaemia sufferers.

Christine Stevens is urging people to head to Newlands School, in Saltersgill, from 4pm until 7pm.

Her daughter, Adele Wardingham, was seven months pregnant when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which has spread to her breasts, stomach and bones.

The cancer was so advanced that the decision was taken in March to deliver Theo ten weeks early, to give his 22- year-old mother the best chance of fighting the disease.

Her healthy baby, who was born weighing 4lb, is now eight months old, but Miss Wardingham is still very ill.

She has been admitted to the Freeman Hospital, in Newcastle, for a course of chemotherapy and to receive new bone marrow.

“It is a match but not a perfect one. It is the best they could do. If it does not work, she can have another go,” said Mrs Stevens.

“We desperately need about 200 people to come to tonight’s event to make it a good night.

“I would urge people to come because eight months ago, I did not think I would be in this situation, and I don’t want anyone else to go though this.”