Leanne Haddrell's family and friends are delighted with a memorial bench they have installed next to her graveside. 

The 21-year-old , from Aston Cross, near Tewkesbury died on May 1 from Myocarditis, a heart problem caused by a virus.

Family members, including her parents Mary and Mike and brother David, say the bench at St Nicholas' Church in Ashchurch is a fitting tribute. 

Mary said: "It's a nice, solid wooden bench and it looks beautiful.  It's amazing.  It's something we wanted to do as a family and it's also something her friends wanted to do. 

"There's a plaque on the bench that says 'Leanne Haddrell BSc 17.02.87 - 01/05/08.  A beautiful girl, a beautiful person, forever in all our hearts.'  It's just right because that's what she was.'

Mary said Leanne remained very much in the family's thoughts and they went out for a meal on what would have been her 22nd birthday. 

She said: 'We put balloons on the bench and her grave and went to TGI Friday's in Cheltenham.  That's what she would have wanted on her birthday.' 

Leanne used to work as a lifeguard at the borough council-run Cascades leisure centre in Tewkesbury. 

Mary said she wanted to thank the council for helping the family get a good deal on the costs of the bench.  She said it meant that some of the money raised by friends for the project could be spent on providing a flower pot at Leanne's graveside, with inscriptions from her pals. 

There are also plans to raise the bench onto paving slabs. 

A swimming marathon at Cascades last year helped raise money towards the cost of the bench and for Cardiac Risk in the Young.  The charity raises awareness that every week 12 apparently healthy young people die in the UK from undiagnosed heart conditions. 

It has set up a memorial fund account in Leanne's name.  So far it has £8,745 in it thanks to the fundraising of her family and friends. 

Leanne was in the second year of a three-year sports studies course at the University of Glamorgan.  Bosses at the university presented her family with a posthumous award in July.