A former Keighley woman who beat leukaemia as a teenager, played piano for the late Princess Diana and made a chart-disc with Lesley Garrett, has been nominated for a top industry award.

Amanda Thompson, 20, who won nationwide fame as a maestro on the piano as a youngster, is competing for the Chemical Industries Association Young Person of the Year Award.

Amanda, now of Prune Park, Bradford, also features in the recently published auto-biography of Esther Rantzen.

She is employed by Low Moor-based Ciba speciality chemicals, where she is being sponsored on a Huddersfield University degree course in chemistry.

She has been nominated by her company for the award and has already undergone an interview for the North East region finals.

If she gets through the national final being held in in London, between June 6-8.

"I'm very flattered and pleased to be nominated. I've now just to wait and see how I've done," said Amanda, who was struck down with leukaemia as a 12 year-old.

She was a student at Manchester-based Chethams at the time and her plight touched the nation when she appeared on Esther Rantzen's Heart of Gold programme.

She went on to make a record of Ave Maria with opera singer Lesley Garrett and to record Air of a G String with actor and comedian Dudley Moore in Miami.

Amanda, who works in the laboratory, also played for Princess Diana at the Savoy Hotel in London at a charity ball.

Miss Rantzen features Amanda in her book, referring to their relationship following the Heart of Gold programme.

"We have always kept in touch. She telephones and I get Christmas cards from her. I've not read all the book yet, but what I have seen I'm impressed by."

Amanda, who originally lived in Keighley, was invited down to the launch of the book last autumn.

She was unable to attend because her 74 year-old father, Bill, suddenly became very ill, dying of prostate cancer in November.

"She understood and sent us a sympathy card," said Amanda, who has fully recovered from her cancer.