A CELEBRATION is to be held next week of the life of a woman whose battle with cancer touched thousands of people.

The heartbroken family of journalist Roz Paterson, who died on Monday, said all donations at the service will be given to Macmillan Cancer Support and Maggie’s Highlands.

Earlier this year the 52-year-old, who lived in Beauly, managed to raise £325,000 in just a few weeks for treatment – then refunded her well-wishers when NHS Highland stepped in to foot the bill.

Inverness-born Hollywood star Karen Gillan was among those who backed the campaign.

Paterson, who worked for the Daily Record and latterly wrote for Scottish Socialist Voice, was diagnosed last summer with Large Diffuse B-Cell Lymphoma, an aggressive form of blood cancer.

When chemotherapy failed to work, the mother of Thea, 13 and David, 10, was told her last hope was a tailored treatment called Car-T Cell Therapy. She first thought she would have to travel to the United States for the therapy but was accepted for a trial at King’s College Hospital in London.

Writing in her blog after her death this week, her partner of 27 years, Malcolm McDonald, said she had been sent home when it was clear no further treatment was possible.

He said he had decided to write the final post because it had touched a lot of people.

“And I think, you know, you read her blog and felt like you had got to know her,” he said. “You had got to really like the way she told her story. You thought she was this wickedly funny, insightful, clever, strong, kind, inspirational, brave woman. You could see the beauty in her, the steel, the fire.

“Well, you know what? You were right.

“And the fire still burns bright. In our two beautiful, brave children, in her beloved brother, and deep in my own heart.

“I was lucky enough to share her life for 27 glorious years and never stopped loving her to bits.”