A FIVE-year-old girl from Bury who survived eye cancer visited an opticians last Saturday — for the pleasure of judging a colouring competition.

Grace Lawrence was diagnosed with retino-blastoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer, when she was two years old, which led to her having an eye removed.

She was treated at Rochdale Eye Hospital, Manchester Eye Hospital and Birmingham Children’s Hospital and had chemotherapy, with support from the Childhood Eye Cancer Trust (CHECT).

On Saturday, Grace visited Vision Express in Central Street, Bury, which has been raising money for CHECT.

Grace’s mother Sarah, aged 40, of Fenton Street, Elton, said: “CHECT is an amazing charity. Without donations, we as a family wouldn’t have had the support in hospital which helped us at an extremely difficult time, with the CHECT support worker introducing us to other families going through the same ordeal.”

Grace was diagnosed with eye cancer at Christmas 2010. However, after being given an artificial eye and then chemotherapy the following May, Grace has made a full recovery.

She attends Guardian Angels Primary School in Elton, and only has to see a specialist every 12 months.

Mrs Lawrence said: “Grace just dealt with it absolutely fine. Her last chemotherapy was over two years ago and she’s shown no side effects.She’s fabulous — a very sociable, very likeable child.”

Vision Express is raising money to celebrate 25 years of trading. Manager Wayne Bingham said: “It’s fantastic to welcome Sarah and Grace to the store to do the honours of choosing our competition winners, because it gives a real sense of how the money raised will help benefit families affected by retino-blastoma.”