AFTER raising £30,000 for children’s charities, Abingdon’s family music festival Yeah Baby! is back for its fifth year.

Culham Laboratory contracts manager James Phillpott launched the festival in 2009 to fundraise for Oxford Children’s Hospital after a friend’s son received life-saving care.

Then, in 2010, his daughter Amber contracted acute myeloid leukaemia and died aged 18 months the following year.

The event, to be held tomorrow, now raises money for the children’s hospital, Ronald McDonald House at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Helen and Douglas House hospice in East Oxford and the Amber Phillpott Trust, which funds research into acute myeloid leukaemia.

Mr Phillpott, 38, from Abingdon, who lives with his wife Fleur, 40, and daughter Daisy, six, said: “Bands will play at the Brewery Tap in Ock Street tonight. But the main event will be in the marketplace tomorrow, and throughout the day we could get about 3,000 people coming along.

“Lots of people in Abingdon supported us when Amber was first in hospital and I suppose raising money in this way is a positive way of grieving.

“This event gets bigger and bigger and I’m proud to be part of something which has raised so much awareness.”

The festival starts in the marketplace at about 11am and runs until 6pm. There will be seven bands performing including Mr Phillpott’s own band The Benbows, arts and crafts stalls, refreshments, a children’s play bus, face painting and martial arts demonstrations.

People are also being encouraged to knit graffiti for a “yarn bombing” campaign around the town in support of the festival.

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a malignant disease of the bone marrow. For information, see facebook.com/yeahbabyabingdon