Christmas concert in aid of Allie Wylie charity raises £1,000

A Christmas concert has raised more than £1,000 for a charity set up in memory of a 17-year-old Highgate schoolgirl who died of cancer three years ago.

The London Metropolitan Brass Band played classical pieces by Handel as well as traditional Christmas carols to fundraise for the Alexandra Wylie Tower Foundation, which helps disadvantaged children in north London.

The charity was set up in February 2011, four months after Channing schoolgirl Allie Wylie, as she was known to her friends, died of cancer. Allie’s neighbour Elin Harries, who also gave the teenager singing lessons, sang with the band at the United Reformed Church in Pond Square on Friday.

Allie’s mother Lindsay, 53, said: “I was a bit nervous because it was the Friday before Christmas, which is a bit of a bonkers date.

“I remembered what Alexandra used to say when she performed. She’d say, ‘I just look down and see all these lovely faces looking up at me, willing me to do well’.

“There was a real sense of Christmas.”