A SUMMER fete will be held in Pewsham this weekend to fund a headstone for a local family’s baby who was stillborn last year.

Natasha Snell has organised the event for friend Katie Gray, who lost her daughter Millie in November after she was stillborn at 37 weeks.

Miss Gray – who has a 10-year-old daughter Charley – and partner Jonny are now trying to save money to purchase a headstone for the infant.

“One of my friends is not having a good time of it and I decided that I was going to do something to help,” said Miss Snell, who has two children, six-year-old Lacey and 16-month-old Lyla.

“They had been trying for years to have a child. They were told that they wouldn’t be able to have kids and then she got pregnant, but this happened.

“It’s really bothering her that she can’t buy a nice headstone. A nice one costs £800 and then you have to pay costs for the cemetery to put it there – it’s a crazy amount of money.

“She can’t do anything for her child and this would be the last thing she can do, ‘putting her to bed’ as she calls it.

“We have known each other probably three years, we’re really good friends.

“She was the first person I told when I was pregnant and I was the first person she told when she was pregnant.”

The event will be held this Sunday from noon at the Pewsham Community Centre, where there will be homemade cakes, a bouncy castle, face painting, net a duck, tombola and candy floss machine.

Money raised from the event will also go towards a cold cot for The Forget Me Not suite at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, where Miss Gray gave birth to Millie.

“Everyone is donating their time and the community support is amazing,” added Miss Snell, 39, who has been with partner Paul for three years.

“It’s bittersweet. They are absolutely over the moon that people want to do it but it sucks that they are doing it in the first place. It’s been devastating for them.”