A NEWPORT mother is mourning for the third time in 18 months after an incurable disease claimed the life of her eldest daughter.

Twenty-year-old Melanie Velline died last Friday from Huntington's disease, the condition which also killed younger sister Katie last June and father Tim the previous summer.

But the girls' mother, Karen, has decreed there must be no black worn at Melanie's funeral, the same request she made for Katie.

"Melanie was a lovely, bubbly girl. She used to say'there's nothing wrong with me" and tried to live life to the full, but she went downhill after her dad died," said Mrs Velline, of Howe Circle, Ringland.

"Katie never liked black. It was always the bright colours for her and Melanie was the same, so I don't want black at the funeral."

Melanie died peacefully at St Anne's Hospice, Newport, with her family around her.

"She'd been in and out of hospital with bad chests, but her death was a big, big shock," said Mrs Velline, who has watched her husband and children succumb to the disease over many years.

Huntington's is an incurable, hereditary, degenerative condition that Katie, who was 16 when she died, and Melanie inherited from their father. Mr Velline, a crane driver at Newport's Orb steelworks, was diagnosed aged 30 in 1990, after the girls were born. He died in August, 2003.

"I've thought many times'what have I done to deserve this?' and I'm still asking," said Mrs Velline.

"But Tim, Katie and Melanie were all fighters and we've taken strength from each other. Back when Tim was diagnosed I told him we will fight it and we did.

"But it is an incurable disease. The experts are getting closer to a cure, but it's come too late for us. I just hope it is soon because nobody should have to go through this."

Melanie, who would have celebrated her 21st birthday later this month, was a big fan of dolphins. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, of which she was a member, will benefit along with St Anne's Hospice from donations in lieu of flowers for her funeral, at St John's Church, Maindee, next Monday.

"She loved dolphins, her bedroom walls have pictures all over, and she swam with them twice," said Mrs Velline.

"I took her to Florida with friends last April and swam with them there. She really came alive that day, it was lovely.