I do...thanks to you

LIKE every bride, Faye Watling will look her best on her wedding day . . . and for that she is grateful to YOU.

For 22 years ago, when she was a tiny tot caring News of the World readers helped change her face - and her life - forever.

You raised a staggering £250,000 - the equivalent of £640,000 today - to help pay for a series of operations in the USA to remove a huge ugly tumour from her cheek.

Now the little girl who became known to the nation as Baby Faye is all grown up and in love.

And as she prepares to head down the aisle with fiance Craig Smith, Faye, 22, says: "I'd like to thank everyone who did something for me all those years ago, all the News of the World readers who helped raise money.

"They paid for 15 years of surgery to put it right. I can never thank you enough. I can't believe I've been so lucky." Faye's childhood ordeal began at less than a year old when a slight blemish on her face began to grow at a terrifying rate. Within a fortnight, it covered the left side of the youngster's face from her eyelid to her jaw.

Her mum Jayne, now 44, recalls: "I thought it was a birth mark. but it in two weeks it was the size of an apple. It grew across her cheek and outwards, pushing her nose, mouth and eye out of shape."

British plastic surgeons told heartbroken Jayne, of Skelmersdale, Lancs, they were powerless to do anything about the crimson coloured growth - known as a cavernous hemangioma - until she was at least seven.

Appeal

But when Faye's sad story appeared in the News of the World, one of our readers alerted the family to pioneering facial surgery that had been developed across the Atlantic.

The stumbling block was the vast cost of sending the tot to the US - but when we launched an appeal to raise enough to send Faye to San Francisco for the first operation, the response from readers was overwhelming. Donations poured in from every corner of the country - even prison inmates were moved to dig deep.

Crooks in London's Wormwood Scrubs collected £218 after seeing her picture. At Styal women's prison in Cheshire, 15 inmates - including 12 murderers - raised £440 by knitting, painting and making soft toys.

As she helps get Fay ready her wedding in two weeks, Jayne says: "We were astonished at the generosity of those who helped. We are so grateful. There was no way we could have afforded the treatment. Without the News of the World, none of this would have been possible."

Before Faye reached her first birthday, she underwent four courses of surgery on the growth at the Palo Alto Medical Clinic. Then, days before her second birthday, the growth was removed by surgeon Dr David Apfelberg, using a then revolutionary scalding laser beam which acted as a "bloodless scalpel". Over the next 13 years, Faye had 19 ops to cover the jagged scar left by the growth's removal.

Today only a beaming smile remains as hairdresser Faye looks forward to marrying her sweetheart Craig, 22, at Wigan town hall in Greater Manchester. "It's going to be a white wedding - I can't wait. It will be the best day ever," she says.

Scar

Faye met electrical engineer Craig in a bar two years ago. "We hit it off straight away," she says. "Craig didn't even notice my scar. I had to tell him about what happened and all the operations I had."

Faye recalls how she became a local celebrity because of the publicity about her. "I was in the papers and on TV so much everyone knew me as 'Baby Faye'," she says. "I was the most famous person in Skelmersdale. All my friends at school were brilliant. They all knew I'd had a lot of surgery. I think they were jealous I got to go to America every year.

"I had the scar down my cheek and then another under my eye. As I grew the scar moved so I needed plastic surgery to cover it.

"I've been through so much but now I've found someone I love."

With his arm around his wife-to-be, Craig says: "Faye's told me all about the operations and I've seen all the pictures of when she was a baby and you have to say they are pretty shocking.

"She been through so much. She's a special girl and I'm so lucky to love her. It'll be the best day of our lives when we get married. She'll look so beautiful - I can't wait."

Meanwhile money raised for Faye by our readers continues to transform lives. Some of the huge sum collected for Faye was given to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool and helped to create a laser suite where children stricken with similar ailments are helped.

"I'm glad we've been able to help others," says Faye. "It wouldn't have been possible without your readers."

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