The funeral for four-year-old Molly Bubb took place in Sturry on Tuesday as hundreds gathered to say farewell to a princess.

Molly died from a cancer so rare doctors described it as one in a million. But to her parents Ashley and Kerry, her eight-year-old brother Colby, and to the relatives and friends who lined the village streets, it was Molly herself who was one in a million.

“Molly used to ask for a princess party,” said Mrs Bubb, 25, of Woodside Road, before the service.

“The funeral will be her princess party, with a white carriage and horses with feathers.

“Molly liked Cinderella – well finally she gets to go to the ball.”

It was midday when the horses and carriage pulled up outside Sturry church. Hundreds of mourners were there to pay their respects to a girl who just six weeks ago appeared the picture of health.

Molly was enjoying her first term at Sturry Primary School and was the bundle of fun she had always been. But at the beginning of October she began suffering headaches and a slight drooping of the face.

It took four weeks for the doctors to diagnose choroid plexus carcinoma, a cancer that strikes only in childhood. Molly died in the arms of her parents and her brother on October 28.

•Molly is one of less than 20 UK children in the past 20 years to have contracted this form of cancer.

Now the Bubb family are raising funds for research into the disease. You can contribute c/o Sturry Parish Council, 38 High Street, Sturry, CT2 0BD, or by phone on 01227 710443.