THE purple light of hope will be on the Guildhall in Worcester as the building is bathed in a glow that aims to promote awareness of pancreatic cancer.

Tomorrow evening the building will be lit up using purple lighting in order to mark the start of the Pancreatic Awareness Month.

It's part of an international movement that sees buildings and iconic locations, from Niagra Falls to the Almonry Museum in Evesham, lit up in purple sometime during November in order to promote the symptoms of pancreatic cancer.

The awareness month comes after the Office for National Statistics released information that the five-year survival from pancreatic cancer, at five percent, remains the lowest in both sexes of all cancers.

Margaret Datson, a survivor of pancreatic cancer from Bewdley, will be outside the Guildhall on Saturday from 2.30pm to 5.30pm trying to raise awareness of the symptoms, which include primarily pain in the stomach or back, jaundice and weight loss.

And at 5.45pm she is inviting people affected by pancreatic cancer in any way to join her for a period of reflection and the lighting of glow sticks in front of the Guildhall.

"I see it as a way of raising awareness," said Mrs Datson, who beat the disease back in 2006. "To get the message out there."

Also on Saturday morning, between 10am and 1pm, at the Bewdley Baptist Church in Bewdley, near Worcester, there will be a Pancreatic Cancer Coffee Morning raising money for research in memory of church goer Chrissie Newhill, of Tenbury, who died from the disease.