HUNDREDS watched as the 19th Light Up A Life switch-on for Wirral Hospice St John's took place tonight.

More than 400 people saw 10,000 bulbs turned on during the Globe-backed ceremony in the hospice gardens.

Pressing the button were 11-year-old Seren and seven-year-old Estelle Saul, whose mother Susan lost a courageous battle against an aggressive form of cancer.

The audience sang carols, accompanied by Wirral Schools' Brass Band and Cantemus Choir. Also providing the entertainment was singer David Palmer, who performed a version of O Holy Night.

Each of the lights has been sponsored by Globe readers in memory of a loved one.

The names of those remembered will feature in books of honour that will be on display in the hospice chapel.

This year's campaign has so far raised just over £87,000 for hospice running costs and money is still coming in.

Switching the lights on was Seren and Estelle’s way of remembering mum Susan, from Pensby, who was diagnosed in 2010 and given just six months to live. She died peacefully in October last year surrounded by family, aged just 41.

After tonight's switch-on, Susan's husband Marcus told the Globe: "It was an excellent night for a great cause and it was a great honour for the girls to have been asked to switch the lights on in memory of their mum.

"The amount of people who have turned out to see the ceremony is tremendous."

Asked how it felt to switch the lights on, Marcus' daughter Seren added: "It was quite nerve-wracking, but good at the same time."

A Facebook campaign Save Our Sue was launched in 2011 led by Marcus. It aimed to raise £45,000 for the treatment not available in this country but which could have saved, or prolonged, Susan's life.

In a funeral message written just weeks before her death Susan thanked friends and family for their support over the years.

She said: "I want to express a real deep heart-felt gratitude for the amount of effort that was fuelled by love and concern to help me to live my life as long as possible and enable me to be as good a mother as I could and see my girls grow.

"The effort from you that was all fuelled by the hope that there would be a cure for me.

"Because of all the support I was given for a precious year and a half in which I was able to raise and get to know my daughters.

"In that time I was able to have precious, special fun times with them and the funding enabled that.

"The love from the fundraising that everyone did and continued to do really filled my heart with hope and I'm eternally grateful for that."

Roz Staveley-Taylor, trustee of Wirral Hospice St Johns, told the Globe: "It's the highlight of our year, really, because it is the time when we commemorate the patients that we've had, the patients' families, their children and people who have lost people in other places, all over the world.

"It's really a very special night for us, when we light the lights. Every lightbulb is a person.

"We're hoping to raise a lot of money through Light Up A Life and people are very generous at this time of year.

"We're very, very grateful to everybody who, not only contributes to the evening by buying a light, but particularly for turning out for what is usually a very cold night in the cold outside.

"They are happy to do that; partly for the hospice, because it's very dear to them, and partly because some have actually paid for lights for generations of their families, not just those who passed away this year or last year.

"So it is very special to them to come along and hear the music. It's a lovely evening."