SCHOOLCHILDREN watched with pride as the unique ambulance they helped design rolled into action.

Stocksfield Avenue Primary School in Fenham, Newcastle, was buzzing with excitement as the special ambulance they named and designed for cancer patient transport charity Daft as a Brush made its first public appearance.

This is the fourth transport ambulance the charity, set up by former hotelier and millionaire Brian Burnie, has on the roads. And pupils from the Fenham school pulled their ideas together to name and design the vehicle.

Daft as a Brush, run by Mr Burnie, aims to take cancer patients living in the region to and from hospital for their appointments, free-of-charge.

They are currently working with patients referred to them by Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital cancer unit. Patients are picked up from their homes by a chauffeur and a companion who accompanies them to the hospital and back home.

Stocksfield Avenue headteacher Sarah Knowles said the whole school had been very excited to see their designs come to life.

She said: “It was when Brian brought the ambulance from another school to show us what it would look like, they were all so excited but that was another school. Now it is so special that it is ours, the school has been buzzing.”

Year Three and Four pupils Owen Allison, Josh Heslop, Libby Jacobson and Milly Jacobson braved the rain to greet Brian with their ambulance. Each class in the school put forward a name for the bus and in the end they merged two ideas from six-year-old Matthew Mason and five-year-old Eloise Wilkinson to get Goldheart.