Pupils are delighted with work on a £100,000 library created as a memorial to a headteacher who died from a rare blood disorder.

The South Benfleet Primary School's library, due to be open to students by Christmas, is in tribute to popular former headteacher Cyndy Batty.

Miss Batty, 54, died suddenly two years ago of amaloisoisis - a blood disorder which stops major organs working properly - just six weeks after falling terminally ill.

She died at St Luke's Hospice in Basildon in the summer of 2002. Miss Batty was head at the school, in High Road, for 18 years.

Building work on her memorial library is now almost finished.