A HAMPSHIRE mum is giving up her hair to help fight the disease that claimed her daughter.

Katie Gallienne lost Olivia, aged two, to cancer in 2007 after she was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukaemia when she was just five weeks old.

Since then Katie, a hairdresser in Alresford, has raised funds to help find ways to beat the disease.

Next Thursday Katie will have her head shaved for charity.

She said: "This is the shortest I will ever have had my hair. I was going to have it done last year but I chickened out. No-one is usually allowed to touch my hair so for me to shave it off is a big thing."

Katie, mother of two, 38, of Old Alresford, has been raising funds during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

So far they have raised £1,200 for Piam Brown ward at Southampton General Hospital, where Olivia was treated between 2004 and 2007.

Last year Katie and the team at Alresford Haircare in West Street dressed in gold, sold gold ribbons as well as cakes and a raffle, to raise £400 for CLIC Sargent.