A YOUNG girl has raised about £1,000 for charity in memory of her aunt who died suddenly from sepsis poisoning.

Alice Smith, ten, of Head Street, Halstead, was very close to her aunt Lucinda Smith, 43, who died from blood poisoning after scratching her hand in the garden last year.

Alice, a Bures Primary School pupil, came up with the idea of creating a Christmas card with the money donated to The UK Sepsis Trust.

She was thrilled when she managed to sell all 1,500 cards.

Her mum, Caroline, sister to Lucinda who was known as Lucy, said: “It was a bit of a spur of the moment thing.

“She was doing something for a school competition to design a poster and it just happened from there. She thought it would make a nice Christmas card and then came up with the idea of donating to charity.

“I was a bit apprehensive at first about whether we would have time but we decided to go for it.”

Caroline said Alice was close to Lucy and her two children, Megan, nine, and Harry, six, and as she was a similar age, she was aware of how difficult it would be for the children to lose their mum.

She added: “It has been a bit manic. We had bits of paper with orders everywhere and we sold out on the first day.

“It was really nice for Lucy’s friends to be able to do something.

“We all miss her a lot so it is great to do something not just to raise money but to remember Lucy.

“This is something positive we could do.”

The Anton Group in Laindon printed and packed the cards free of charge.

Caroline added: “We are very grateful to them for doing that.

“Alice was over the moon when we sold them all — she was thrilled.

“She is quite creative. “She’s a chip off the block as I did an art degree and my husband is a website designer.”

Lucy, of Billericay, went to see her GP after scratching her hand as she began to experience pain in her shoulder.

After her condition deteriorated, she went to A&E where she was diagnosed with sepsis.

However, she died of a heart attack three days later after the blood poisoning caused her organs to fail.