North Derbyshire schoolgirl raises over £1000 by donating long locks to the Little Princess Trust

Penelope Buttery from Eckington showed her support for the Little Princess Trust by having her long locks chopped on July 16, just days before her sixth birthday.

The charity provides free real hair wigs to children and young people (up to the age of 24) who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment or other conditions.

Along with donating 12.9 inches of hair, Eckington Camms Primary School pupil Penelope raised a total of £1,205 – enough to provide two wigs as they cost the charity £550 each to manufacture.

Her mum Lucy said: “She had really long hair, it was touching her bottom. Last December, she said she wanted to cut her hair and I don’t know why I thought about it but I showed her the Little Princess Trust charity and said ‘mummy, I want to do that’.

"I measured her hair and we’d got about 6 inches and as I looked a bit further into the charity, they were wanting 7 inches as a minimum but they were starting a ‘let it grow’ campaign where they were having a lot of donations of 7 inches and wanted people to donate anything over 12 inches.

"We’ve been growing it since December and then when we had it cut we got 12.9 inches taken off her hair. We aimed to raise the £550 at first but she hit that within an hour so we then tried to raise the rest to get two wigs, which she did manage to get and a little bit more.”

Penelope braved the chop at Cabello Lounge in Killamarsh with the help of hairdresser Alicia Burns.

Her family are hugely proud and say the young schoolgirl is now enjoying her new hairdo as she begins the summer holidays.

Lucy added: “She’s really happy with her hair. She would like it a little bit longer but we wanted it how we cut it to get over 12 inches.

"We bought her some new clips to make it a bit fun for her but she hasn’t once complained because she knows it’s going to poorly boys and girls. That’s all she ever wanted to do.”

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