A MUM suffering from cancer hopes she can give her daughter the dream 18th birthday present after a year of tragedy.

Lucy Murray, 52, of Billericay made a public appeal for people to help her daughter, Sarah, 17, who has Down’s syndrome, have her dream of having Saturday Night Takeaway presenters, Ant and Dec appear at her 18th birthday party.

On January 10, the mother and daughter had to deal with the first anniversary of the loss of husband and father, Frank, who died of cancer last year.

In November last year, Lucy was also diagnosed with the disease and just days before the anniversary of her husband’s death, she found out it was terminal.

Lucy said: “My husband, Frank’s last ever Christmas the best one ever.

“On January 10, Sarah and I had to deal with the dreadful first anniversary of losing Frank.

“This in itself would have been hard enough without the news I had received of the devastating diagnosis that I too, have incurable cancer.”

Lucy and Sarah lost their home in Morris Avenue after Frank died.

The family were forced to move away from Billericay where both Lucy and her daughter had grown up.

She said: “When my husband died the mortgage was only in his name and the bank wouldn’t let me take it over, so I had to sell our home to pay it back.

“There wasn’t enough left to get anything locally.”

After a year of tragic loss and now the news of Lucy’s condition, she launched an appeal on Facebook to have the presenters make a surprise appearance at Sarah’s party in June.

Lucy said: “In June, Sarah will be 18 and I want to give her the best birthday party ever – it might be my last chance.

“She is absolutely devoted to Ant and Dec, and it would be a dream come true if they could turn up at her party to surprise her.

“I know this is a huge, if not impossible wish.”

Lucy made the appeal after she had launched a previous one in the past to help Sarah find a purse she had lost.

Lucy said she witnessed the power of social media to help people “first hand”.

She said: “I have witnessed the amazing power of Facebook first hand.

“My hope is that someone, somewhere, might just possibly have some sort of connection or contact with Ant and Dec so that I might be able to at least ask them.”