Decorated stones were laid in memory of tragic Kelly Turner yesterday.

An art group organised a memorial for the 17-year-old Dovorian who died last week from a rare cancer.

The stone laying ceremony was set up by Channel Rocks, which has members from all over east Kent decorating pebbles to hide, for people to find.

This time they have created an open site of remembrance in front of the Banksy mural in Dover’s York Street.

Organiser Amy Nicholas, of River, read a tribute statement out to well-wishers.

It said: “With great sadness but with greater love, we have created a place to remember a truly creative, brave and inspiring teenager.

“Created by a community who perhaps didn’t know her personally but followed her progress, got involved with fund raising and watched her and her family fight against such a cruel disease.

"Kelly, we hope you like them.”

Mrs Nicholas explained to the Mercury: “One of our community’s much-loved teenagers sadly passed away.

"People had started to create beautiful rocks dedicated to Kelly.

“Kelly loved art, she was very creative so we thought we would place the rocks in an open public space and we hope that will continue to grow over the next few days and weeks.”

Both Kelly’s parents, Martin and Linda Turner, attended the stone laying.

Mr Turner said: “This is the sort of thing that Kelly would have absolutely loved.
“She’s in our hearts and she’s with us all the time.”

Kelly had been diagnosed with desmoplastic small round cell tumours in October 2105, a rare teenage cancer.

In the last 17 months of her life Dovorians, and well-wishers from neighbouring towns, had constantly helped raised money for the £1 million needed for specialist treatment in America.

It was done through fundraising events or private donations and the sum came to more than £600,000 by the time she died last Monday.

The money will now be used for research into chemotherapy for this type of cancer as none is presently available.

The Kelly Turner Fundraising campaign is changing to the Kelly Turner Foundation for this and fundraising events are continuing.

Youn cane help by donating via justgiving.com/fundraising/Kelly-Turner2000.