HUNDREDS OF mourners saw a small pink coffin carried off to Sleepyhillock Cemetery in a glass carriage drawn by pair of pink-plumed ponies at the end of a moving funeral service for Montrose butterfly girl Adana Forsyth yesterday.

Pink was the favourite colour of the 10-year-old, whose battle with the rare and agonising skin-blistering condition epidermolysis bullosa ended on Saturday, November 22 when she died peacefully at home, and in her memory even the order of service bore that hue.

Conducted by the Rev Dr Ian McLean at the Old and St Andrew’s Church, the service was planned to capture the bubbly personality of Adana which triumphed over the pain she had to endure all of her short life and captured the hearts of everybody who got to know her through the campaigns she led to boost funds for research.

The hymns chosen were Jesus Loves Me and her favourite Christmas carol Away In A Manger and the appreciation of her life was specifically slanted to help her many young friends in the congregation overcome their sense of loss.

Youngest child of Dianne and Peter Forsyth, Adana was born with the most severe form of the incurable condition EB, which caused her skin and internal linings to blister, bleed and peel at the least touch.

Sufferers are known as the butterfly children because their skin is likened to the fragile membrane of the insect’s wing.

Adana was one of about 35 people in Scotland (and around 5000 in the UK) who suffer from the disorder. While there is as yet no cure, scientists in Dundee are at the forefront of a £3m study involving testing genetically modified skin.