A MOTHER has paid tribute to the daughter she described as ‘the best in the world’.

Pat Harris said her daughter, Dr Donna McCormick, would be greatly missed after the clinical psychologist lost her battle against leukaemia.

Dr McCormick was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in February last year and was determined to fight the disease.

It came just five months after she married policeman Greg Iredale at St Matthew’s Church in Brighouse.

But in November doctors told her the treatment had been unsuccessful.

She sadly died on January 3, aged 37.

Mrs Harris said: “Everyone thinks their child is the best in the world, but she really was.

“It doesn’t seem fair to me that this wonderful, beautiful and clever woman should be taken away.”

Dr McCormick, a former Brighouse Girls’ Grammar School pupil, achieved much in her medical career.

She studied at Liverpool, Stirling and Leeds universities and obtained her teaching certificate at Huddersfield.

She became a clinical psychologist and also taught at Lancaster University.

Mrs Harris added: “She worked so hard all her life and she achieved so much, which obviously made me very proud.

“She was so clever and was always getting good grades at school. By her early teens she was determined to be a psychologist.

“She loved her job and enjoyed helping others too.”

During her time as a patient at St James’s Hospital in Leeds Dr McCormick would log on to Baldy’s Blog to read the blog of Examiner reporter Adrian Sudbury.

“It gave her so much comfort to read about someone else,” her mother said. “She would tell me that she was having the same feelings or emotions and would show me what he wrote.

“If she was in hospital her husband would print it out and take it in for her to read.

“It has been a big help to her to read it.”

Dr McCormick spent the last two weeks of her life meeting family and friends.

She also arranged her own funeral, to be held at St Matthew’s Church.

Mrs Harris added: “It is a comfort to me to know she has planned everything the way she wants it. It is her last wish.

“I am so glad she was part of my life.

“When I lost my son Nicholas, her brother, when she was 15 and he was 16 she was such a great support to me.

“I lost my husband a few years ago and again she was there for me.

“I am so devastated, as is Greg. We are both shocked at the moment, we haven’t really faced life without her yet.

“She was the most wonderful person you could imagine. We’ll all miss her so much.”

Mr Iredale said: “More than anything Donna was a loving and caring person, who was particularly close to her mother and extended family, as well as many long standing and close friends

“I have been overwhelmed by the cards of sympathy describing Donna as vibrant, inspirational, fun and caring. She really touched people’s lives.”

Her funeral will take place at 11am on Tuesday. The family have asked that any donations are made to the Bone Marrow Unit at St James’s Hospital, to help in the treatment for leukaemia.