1000"s attend vigil in honour of cancer campaigner Stephen Sutton

Stephen Sutton’s efforts assisted increase above £4m for the fight against cancer. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

A lot more than ten,000 people took part in a vigil in honour of Stephen Sutton, the teenage cancer campaigner whose achievements have been remembered on Friday at a memorial support prior to he was laid to rest at a personal funeral.

The services, held to mark the finish of two days’ thanksgiving for the lifestyle of the 19-12 months-old who helped raise £4m in the fight towards cancer just before he succumbed to a number of tumours on 14 Might, was attended by friends and loved ones which includes his mom Jane, and older brother Chris.

Tributes have been also paid on social media. Stephen was a keen consumer of Twitter which said that eleven,000 tweets had been sent with the hashtag #ThumbsUpForStephen.

1000′s filed past his white coffin over two days as it lay in area of honour within Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire, in what Adrian Dorber, dean of Lichfield, named a phenomenal show of human unity for a man who had “turn into everybody’s favourite son”.

Among the mourners was comedian Jason Manford, who met Stephen in hospital, and was between a host of celebrities who praised the young man’s courage in residing with terminal condition.

Earlier, about 400 men and women had also offered a thumbs-up to the memory of Sutton.

Dorber mentioned Stephen’s memory had energised people, the two youthful and old, cancer survivors and sufferers, who had queued to grieve the loss of the teenager, from Burntwood, in Staffordshire.

He explained the enduring lesson of Stephen, diagnosed with bowel cancer at 15, was “to dwell not as a victim but as a free of charge younger man or woman”, including his inspiration was to “offer an substitute to the bleak, indicate see, we often have of daily life”.

Stephen’s former headteacher, Stuart Jones, of Chase Terrace Engineering College, explained there was a collective pride more than the fact Stephen had studied there. “It is hard to comprehend how he found the courage, determination and vitality to achieve what he did in his final couple of years,” he said.

These achievements, brought with each other in a bucket list, incorporated Sutton urging Jones to join him in a 15,000ft skydive. “I hated it, as I anticipated, but am genuinely glad I did it,” he stated. “His spirit tends to make us want to be bolder and braver.”

Siobhan Dunn, chief executive of the Teenage Cancer Believe in, explained: “The big difference Stephen has produced has been immeasurable.” She stated the charity would commit the donations supporting and building the trust’s 22 Uk units, outreach nursing teams and youth assistance staff.

“Younger men and women ought to not be defined by their cancer,” she mentioned, including that thecharity would carry on to perform under Stephen’s ethos that “even though he could have had cancer, cancer did not have him”.

Dunn mentioned: “How fitting it is a young individual with cancer proved the catalyst to supporting a lot of far more younger men and women with cancer, now and in the future.”

Outside, as his coffin emerged from the cathedral the crowd of one,200 again clapped for a ultimate time as 19 balloons have been launched by his mother and brother, prior to a a lot greater number had been allow loose to cheers and musical backing by the Pandemonium Drummers, who had performed for the London 2012 Olympic Video games.

1000"s attend vigil in honour of cancer campaigner Stephen Sutton