THE mother of Skye Hall has urged people to turn their cars into cash to raise funds for the charity that the family started after their son was diagnosed with cancer.

Parents Sally and Andrew Hall, from Abingdon, founded Blue Skye Thinking in July last year.

Five-year-old Skye, who had been diagnosed with medulloblastoma, an aggressive, cancerous brain tumour, passed away from radio-chemo neurotoxicity last August. It meant healthy cells in his brain and spinal cord were damaged by a regime of radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

Since then the family’s charity has been fundraising non-stop for research to find treatments and cures for the disease and has now signed up to Giveacar, a company that encourages people to turn their old cars into money for charities.

Mrs Hall, 37, said she came up with the idea after having trouble getting rid of her own car.

She added: “When people want to dispose of an old car, I know too well the hassle factor of paying for it to be auctioned. It happened to me once as I was on my way to the car auction. I was told the car was good for nothing.

“But on the way to the auction, I broke down and was in early stages of labour.

“Then I was rescued by a breakdown firm and went straight to John Radcliffe Hospital, where Skye came into the world.”

Giveacar arranges a free collection before selling a car at auction or scrapping and donating the money raised to charity.

For each car scrapped, the family will receive about £80.

Mrs Hall, mum of three-year-old Jesse, added: “If just 100 people supported us we’d raise about £8,000, which would make a massive difference to a small charity like ours.

“The fact that there is still so much to be done to find cures means we will not stop until we can make a difference. We have just launched it on the charity website this week, so hopefully it will get a lot of interest.”

In April, the family reached their goal of £120,000, enough to fund a four-year PhD research post at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research.

Based at Newcastle University, the researcher will work on finding new treatments for childhood brain tumours.

Mrs Hall said: “From the moment that Skye was diagnosed, we were told never to give up hope, as new and better treatments were being found through research every day.

“We now understand, though, that this lifesaving research is funded primarily from public donations in response to appeals like ours.”

For more information about the charity appeal visit blueskyethinking.org.