A six-year-old girl who had a brain tumour removed when she was a baby is hoping for a Christmas number one after releasing a charity single.
Lyra Cole, who underwent emergency surgery when she was five months old, has teamed up with her aunt to record a version of When A Child Is Born to raise money for Brain Tumour Research.
She is already making an impact, with the song sitting at the top of the Amazon download chart on Thursday afternoon ahead of the likes of Stormzy and Dua Lipa, but Lyra is hoping for more.
“I’m really hoping that the song makes it into the Christmas charts,” she said. “That would be a dream come true.”
Lyra, from Highbridge in Somerset, underwent an 11-hour operation to have a brain tumour the size of an orange removed from the back of her head when she was an infant after initially being misdiagnosed as having a virus.
She then needed a further operation to restore her sight when doctors found a cyst growing on her optic nerve.
Lyra’s aunt Jessie Hawkes said: “We chose the track When A Child is Born because I think it will really resonate with people and I hope that when they listen and see the video they will think about everything Lyra has been through and make a donation to give hope to families who, like us, know the devastation caused by a brain tumour.”
According to Brain Tumour Research, brain tumours kill more children and adults under 40 then any other cancer – but just 1% of cancer research funding in the UK goes towards studying them.
When A Child Is Born was a number one hit for Johnny Mathis in the UK in 1976 and has also been covered by artists including Cliff Richard, Boney M and Susan Boyle.