A collection at a cancer victim's funeral was being held today - to help her friend, who is also battling cancer, go on a family holiday for the first time.

Joyce Esgate, 49, who died of brain cancer, told her family she wanted them to help Diane Metcalfe, whom she met while receiving hospital treatment.

Joyce, of Haworth Road, Heaton, met fellow cancer sufferer Diane at Bradford Royal Infirmary three weeks before she died on April 5.

Diane's family, of Tyersal, are hoping to raise enough money to pay for their first family holiday, to Spain.

Joyce's daughter Julie Esgate said: "My mum was so generous, she would do anything for anybody.

"She only knew Diane for three weeks but they were like best friends.

"Even through her own illness she always talked about Diane. And she worried about how her own death would affect the people she left behind.

"My mum never had it easy but she had a lot of friends. She had the ability to keep a friend for life."

Joyce, who worked as a customer advisor at Grattan in Bradford, developed a tumour on her spine last summer.

She went abroad for the first time to Cyprus in September before receiving radiotherapy treatment.

But in January she started to get severe headaches and was diagnosed with brain cancer in March. Despite more radiology treatment she died three weeks later.

Diane Metcalfe, 34, of Arkwright Street, Tyersal, who is fighting lung cancer, said: "She was a lovely woman and we became really good friends. She came to see me when she was discharged. She helped to keep my spirits up."

Diane and her husband David were due to attend the funeral at Scholemoor Cemetery today with Joyce's children Mark, 29, Julie, 25, Nicola, 24 and Clare, 14, and her partner Derek Clarke, 52.

Hundreds of pounds have already been sent by T&A readers to the Metcalfes - who have five children, including 14-year-old Adam, who was born without arms.

They plan to spend a week in Malaga, Spain, in June.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.