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Newspaper goes purple in tribute to cancer death teen

A regional daily newspaper turned its front page and masthead purple in tribute to a local teenager who lost her battle with cancer.

The North West Evening Mail changed colour on Tuesday after the death of 17-year-old Alice Pyne, who gained global fame when she published a bucket list of things she wanted to do before she died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

She set up a charity called Alice’s Escapes for terminally ill children and their families and following her death, many people turned their social media profiles purple in tribute to her, as that was the colour of the charity.

The Evening Mail also turned its website and Facebook sites the same colour and took the further step of transforming the front page of its Ulverston and South lakes edition. 

Deputy editor James Higgins said: “We wanted to do something to reflect the feeling of the local community and felt changing our front page in this way was the right thing to do.

“It is not something we have done before – to this extent at least – but Alice was such an inspirational young woman, and dealt with her illness with grace beyond her years.

“We wanted to offer our own tribute to her, and recognise the wonderful and selfless work she did in her short life.”

Alice gained the support of celebrities, Prime Minister David Cameron and local people, who did what they could to help her achieve her dreams before she died.

Among her main wishes was that everyone eligible should sign up to the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register, and that everyone should have a bucket list.

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  • January 16, 2013 at 4:26 pm
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    Three stories related to death on the front page – not a happy read that particular day then.

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