Breast cancer took Fiona Yorke-Saville’s mum from her when she was just nine months old.

Her mum, Christine, was diagnosed while she was pregnant, and tragically even though she was born early at 27 weeks, her mother had succumbed to the disease before she was even able to walk.

Just 31, she had originally thought the lump in her breast was a problem with her milk ducts.

But on getting it checked out, she was given the devastating news that she had breast cancer.

Fiona, her youngest daughter now 35, will walk in her memory, when she takes part in Breast Cancer Care’s Pink Ribbonwalk this summer at Leeds Castle.

The family tragedy changed many lives. Husband Terry worked as a handyman while bringing up his three young daughters after his wife’s death – Fiona, Wendy, six and Stephanie, four.

He met Colleen a few years after he was widowed, and although she had no children of her own, she took to motherhood like a natural.

She and Terry married and went on to also have a daughter, Lanna.

In the run-up to Mother’s Day Fionawho lives in Walderslade said: “Colleen was absolutely fantastic and she has been in my life since I was three. We’re still very close, and regularly meet up and go away together. Colleen isn’t my birth mother but the love she had for me and my sisters shows that you can be thinking of any sort of mother, whatever the circumstance.”

Colleen,who lives in Dymchurch, even walked Fiona down the aisle when she married Michael, as Terry died seven years ago.

Fiona, who has two daughters, Sophie, four, and two-year-old Amy, will be walking the Pink Ribbonwalk for the first time on Saturday, June 20, doing the 20-mile route, with her husband’s cousin Martina Hartmann.

This year, organisers Breast Cancer Care have added a five-mile route for families with children over eight to take part.

It will be the third year it’s been held in Kent, and last year 750 people took part.

Participants must raise £100 in sponsorship and it costs £30 to register, and £15 for under 18s. Walkers receive free entry to the venue grounds (with a reduced entry fee for friends and family), while there is no minimum sponsorship for under 18s. For details visit www.breastcancercare.org.uk/walk