Family’s tribute to brave Chesterfield teenager, 16, following battle with bone cancer

Charlotte Noble, 16, passed away at home in Walton with her parents Charles and Michelle, sisters Isabel and Yasmin, and her 19-year-old brother Oliver by her side.

She would have turned 17 on Wednesday and has been described as a having a “wicked sense of humour”.

The bright and beautiful teen was known for her outgoing personality and loved by both her friends at Brookfield School and those she had met while undergoing hospital treatment.

Charles told how even whilst battling the cancer, his daughter lived life to the fullest and was always smiling.

He said: “If you ever talk to any of the nurses, they would tell you she had a wicked sense of humour and she fights. Even at the very end, she wasn’t going to die.

"She never complained about anything. There’s a story that my wife told me about a little girl who had come onto her ward for her first treatment and she’d been told she was going to lose her hair – Charlotte went over to her and said ‘well look at me, I’ve got no hair it’s nothing to worry about’.

"Charlotte had wigs and things like that but she didn't care… she would go out without a wig on and nothing. Take me as I am, that’s what Charlotte was.”

Charlotte was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma – a cancer which mainly tends to affect teenagers and young adults – in September 2019 after noticing her leg had begun to swell.

The youngest of three triplets, she underwent numerous rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy at Sheffield Children’s Hospital and even travelled to London’s Stanmore Hospital for limb sparing surgery in which her femur and knee were replaced with a metal prosthesis.

Her initial treatment finished in July 2020 and she enjoyed around six months of being a typical teenager and had a ‘nice summer’ according to Charles during which the family remained hopeful she would beat the disease.

But Charlotte relapsed and doctors dealt devastating news the cancer had spread to other parts of her body, with treatment from then only being administered to prolong life.

Charles added: “She wouldn’t accept it, she always believed she was going to fight it. She would say ‘I’m going to beat this dad’, even though they’re all saying I won’t’.

"You couldn’t talk about her passing, she was going to fight it and did fight it up until the very end.

"She was in so much pain but she’d always got a one liner – some you couldn’t put in the paper and kept her sense of humour until the end.

"She was always worried about others as well. I would go and take the bad news and feed it back to the family, but it was always ‘don’t you cry dad’. We'd get the bad news and she’d say, ‘oh how’s mum going to cope with this?’.

"I’d get a phonecall at work and she’d say ‘popsicles’ – because that was my nickname – she’d ask to go to Meadowhall. She used to love going out to ‘primarni’ and to Morrisons looking for the yellow stickers.

"It was the simple things… even while we were there she had to get something for her sisters, she couldn’t not come back with something for them.

"The amazing thing we’ve found, because teenagers live on their phones, is that she was talking to certain other people who had similar cancers.

"Another girl who had similar, she had her leg amputated, she’s been struggling and they’ve messaged my wife on Facebook saying that Charlotte was such a comfort to them and such a strength and they’re so sorry she’s passed.

"It really touched my wife… I just think, that’s my Lottie.”

Charlotte’s funeral is set to take place at Chesterfield Crematorium next Friday, July 15, and will be a private ceremony for her family and friends.

Her mum Michelle is currently running a birthday fundraiser raise in aid of Bone Cancer Research Trust, which helps fund both ground-breaking research and life-saving awareness initiatives, and provides information and support to patients and their loved ones affected by the disease.

To donate visit www.facebook.com/donate/5281235361970306/5281235561970286.

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