When a constellation of little stars lit up this year’s Britain’s Got Talent stage with a performance from Beauty and the Beast, all eyes were on the 10-year-old in the middle wearing a ballgown as yellow as the sun.
And the Belle of the ball that night is a Belle in real life too.
PixieBelle Sykes will be taking to the stage again in tonight’s live semis, dancing with The Pixiebelles, the Manchester troupe named after her.
But what the BGT audience did not know as the group performed Be My Guest at the auditions is that PixieBelle has spent half her life battling an aggressive brain tumour.
The brave youngster was a Child of Courage winner at last year’s Pride of Manchester Awards for her determination in battling through three years of gruelling chemotherapy.
She was only five and had just started school when she was diagnosed with the rare pilocytic astrocytoma in June 2018.
She had always been a fizz bomb of energy, making up little dances and jokes to entertain her big brother Zac, who is two years older. Mum Katie, 36, says: “She’s always been so outgoing and smiley with lots of friends. We took her to a dance class when she was three because she loved it so much. She looked so sweet, this little thing in a big tutu.”
But things started to change. Katie says: “I started to notice a glide in her right eye. It was very slight and others couldn’t see it. I took her for an eye test but they couldn’t find a reason. Our GP sent us away. But I knew something was wrong so we went private.”
PixieBelle was having headaches and, just as the sight in her right eye began to fail, the private MRI scan revealed a tumour was pressing on her optic nerve.
They went straight to the cancer ward at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. Mum Katie and dad Andy, 40, had to be strong for PixieBelle but doctors were guarded in their prognosis. Teacher Katie says: “Even today no one knows how her tumour will react to treatment.”
Chemotherapy began to change PixieBelle. Her mum says: “She lost her hair and weight, was constantly sick and couldn’t go to school.”
PixieBelle endured four brain operations, lost her hair three times and the sight in her eye.
The family from Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, tried to keep her spirits up but there were days when she languished at home, drained.
Katie says: “It was awful. Pixie’s school is directly behind our house so she could hear all the chatter and laughter from the playground, all her friends having fun, and she’d be on the sofa, sick.”
In December 2018, after 21 weeks of chemo, PixieBelle had an adverse reaction to the drugs and had to start again from week one, with different medication. Katie was desperate to find some joy in life for her brave little girl when she heard of a children’s dance group in Failsworth, Oldham.
The teacher and kids welcomed Pixie and the group became a lifeline.
Katie says: “Pixie had no hair and some days she’d be too weak to dance, but the teacher was so kind to us. She gave us her costume as a gift. No one mentioned her hair and if Pixie couldn’t dance, she could watch.”
In October 2021 Pixie rang the end-of-treatment bell at the children’s hospital. But three months later a scan showed the tumour was growing again.
By then she had endured well over 100 sessions of chemo, yet it had not been enough. Dad Andy says: “We were stunned. However, we were delighted to get Pixie on to an experimental new medical trial.”
She was one of only 60 people in the world on the trial for a new treatment, in tablet form, at Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary. Katie says: “There are far fewer side-effects and Pixie is able to pretty much carry on as normal and is back at school.”
When her dance teacher asked Katie if there was anything special they could do for Pixie, she had an answer. Katie says: “She’s mad about Britain’s Got Talent so I said, ‘She’d love to audition for BGT’.”
The Pixiebelles were born. The teacher sent off an application, then our sister paper the Manchester Evening News got in touch, wanting to celebrate PixieBelle’s courage and how the family had raised £45,000 for Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital Charity towards a new MRI scanner for kids.
PixieBelle became a Child of Courage and, with her new energy thanks to the more easily tolerated trial drugs, threw herself into rehearsals for BGT.
She says: “When I saw my yellow dress, I cried. Walking out on to the stage was like a dream.”
The nation’s hearts melted in the auditions as PixieBelle blurted: “I’m going to cry!”
But then the music began and she glittered instead.
“Ant and Dec were really funny,” she says. “And when the people started clapping it was amazing. It helped me to see people were there for me. And nobody mentioned my hair!”
All the children watched their audition on catch-up as they were winning first prize in a competition in Oldham when the show was finally aired.
Now, tonight’s semis are all PixieBelle is thinking about. Katie says. “We were at the hospital, out came a needle and she said, ‘I’m not worried about this, I’m worried about Friday!’.”
Her first four scans during the trial showed her tumour shrinking, and the last two showed it is stable.
Now PixieBelle is full of plans for the future, saying: “I want to be a dance teacher. I want to be able to show other kids that whatever you are going through, it is going to be OK.”
* Britain’s Got Talent continues with the last semi-finals tonight at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
