An inspirational cystic fibrosis sufferer and outstanding campaigner who wanted to promote change in the world has died.

Emily Thackray, 30, from West Ewell, died on December 28 at Harefield Hospital.

Born with cystic fibrosis, a disease causing progressive lung damage, she underwent a double lung transplant in 2007 and relentlessly raised awareness of organ donation and cystic fibrosis before and after this.

Emily lived and worked locally her whole life.

As well as being a wife to Adam and mother to two-year-old Sophia, Emily was a music teacher and choir mistress and worked at Kingswood School, Wallace Fields in Epsom, and Banstead’s Beacon School - where her Glee-inspired show choir, Vocal Blaze, twice won the Surrey Arts Show Choir Competition.

Emily was always involved in drama and the arts as a student at Epsom and Ewell High School, where she was head girl.

She studied French and Drama at Bristol University, graduating with a 2.1 degree despite being in a wheelchair and on oxygen at the time.

Emily was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at birth, and immediately started the daily regime of treatments and medications to keep her lungs as healthy as possible.

However, by the time she was 20, her lungs were so badly damaged she was told she needed a double lung transplant in order to survive.

Desperately ill and dependent on oxygen 24 hours a day, she waited for 22 months before receiving her life-saving transplant.

During that time, Emily never stopped campaigning and, in 2006, left her hospital bed to take part in a 5k challenge using a wheelchair and oxygen to help her complete the course and raise more than £20,000.

She also co-founded the Live Life Then Give Life charity while waiting for the transplant, which encourages people to register as organ donors.

Emily’s younger sister Lucy Thackray said the transplant gave her family nearly eight extra years with Emily and enabled her to get married, have a baby, work, travel and enjoy life.

Lucy Thackray said: "Emily believed in the power of people to make great change - they certainly did in her life, with a person's decision to be an organ donor giving her a new lease of life and advice and guidance from Surrogacy UK enabling her to be a parent in the last few years.

"She will be lovingly remembered and missed as a sister, daughter, aunty, mum, teacher, friend and campaigner, but her message lives on in her tireless work for charity and positive mark she left on the world.

"She will have inspired so many people in the community to think bigger, do better and make some change around them."

Lucy Thackray said her sister was bubbly and extroverted and was known for her public speaking skills. 

"She was a very positive person with no regrets," she added. 

"She was going to make the most of every single minute."

Emily regularly made national television appearances raising awareness of organ donation.

Having raised thousands of pounds for charities including the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Live Life Then Give Life, Emily picked up the lifetime achievement award at the Justgiving awards in 2011.

She started to fundraise when she was just 10-years-old. Her first event was in her back garden and she made £120.

Barbara Kelley, a member of the Epsom and Kingston Group of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, said the branch was saddened to hear of the death of a "remarkable young lady".

"Emily was a sufferer of Cystic Fibrosis but that did not define her," she said.

"She was a smiley, happy, inspirational young lady.

"She loved her life and when she received a lung transplant in 2007 she became a champion of the organ donor campaign.

"Members of the local group met with her from time to time, and were amazed at the wonderful attitude to life which she had, which was an inspiration to anyone who has any connection to Cystic Fibrosis - a life-limiting disease with symptoms which, among other things, clog the lungs and cause major respiratory problems.

"We send our sympathy to her family and close friends who will miss this remarkable young lady."

To find out how to sign the organ donor register click here.

Did you know Emily?  Leave a message and make a donation to Harefield Hospital in her memory by clicking here.

For more information about Live Life Then Give Life click here.