A teacher who found her true vocation working with pupils with learning difficulties has lost her two-year battle against breast cancer.

And her young son is now facing his own fight against the disease.

While Helen Murray, 36, of Norbury Close, Marks Tey, was ill, her son Matthew was also diagnosed with cancer, in the form of a Wilms tumour. He is currently undergoing treatment at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

Mrs Murray was a gifted and well-respected teacher who had worked with youngsters around the county.

Born in Hampshire, she gained a degree in French and German from Birmingham University before studying for a PGCE to enable her to teach.

In 1988, she spent her probationary teaching year as a German teacher at the Harwich School in Dovercourt and later progressed to become head of the subject.

Deciding her true vocation lay elsewhere, she fulfilled her life's ambition in 1991, taking up a post teaching pupils with moderate learning difficulties at Market Field School, Elmstead Market.

Two years later she married Nick Murray, a teacher she had met while teaching at Harwich.

From that September she spent two years as head of languages at the Endeavour School, Brentwood.

In July 1995, she finished work and a month later her son Matthew was born. The couple's second son James known as Jamie was born in December 1998.

She thrived on the responsibility of motherhood and after being diagnosed with breast cancer in July 1999, refused to give in to the condition.

Her funeral has been held at Marks Tey Parish Church