A TEACHING assistant had her locks shaved off to show solidarity with one of her pupils who is losing patches of hair through chemotherapy.

Liz Barford, 35, encouraged onlookers to pay to cut a chunk off her shoulder length brown hair before the clippers finished off the rest.

So far she has raised £310 for the Kamren Ward at the Oxford Children’s Hospital, where five-year-old Kings Sutton Primary School pupil Enya Wyatt is being treated.

The youngster, of Newlands, Kings Sutton, near Banbury, was diagnosed with Langerhans’ Cell Histiocytosis this year.

This will see clumps of her hair fall out and a wig has been made for the future.

About 50 people gathered in front of the village’s Pop Around Sue’s hairdresser to watch Mrs Barford’s locks fall to the ground. Afterwards, she said she felt strange.

Mother-of-four Mrs Barford, of Dairy Ground, Kings Sutton, said: “I did it in solidarity so when Enya goes back to school with bald patches, she’s not the only one.”

The youngster’s mother, Carina, 30, said of Mrs Barford: “I think she’s fantastic.

“She did it all off her own back – she came and told me she was going to do this for Enya. I think she’s very brave.”

She said of her daughter: “We always knew something wasn’t quite right, she didn’t thrive like other children and was always quite weak.

“When she started school she didn’t keep up with everyone else, but we just thought she was tired.

The family spotted a lump on Enya’s sternum and, after a biopsy, doctors diagnosed LCH, a rare condition which strikes about 50 children in the UK a year.

Since then Enya has undergone six weeks’ intensive chemotherapy, and every three weeks for about the next year will have chemotherapy and steroid treatment.

Mrs Wyatt, who is married to Dave, 31, and has two sons Rhys, 12, and Finn, nine, said: “In herself she is really well.

“It’s brilliant the way she deals with it – kids are so resilient and just get on with it.

“The LCH can come back, but as far as I know the chemotherapy stopped it progressing.”