DAME Judi Dench has pledged to give a recital to help send York multiple sclerosis victim Yasmin Heesom to an American clinic to beat her crippling pain.

The York-born actress was attending an open day at her old school, The Mount - where Yasmin's daughter, Bella, is a pupil - when the Evening Press told her of Yasmin's £10,000 appeal to undergo complementary therapy in New York.

She immediately told Bella and her form mistress, Viv Moon, she would do a comic recital with her husband, Michael Williams.

"I will certainly do everything I can to help Bella and her mother."

A thrilled Bella, 15, said: "I can't believe it. My mum will be over the moon."

Dame Judi also bought balloons for a race organised by pupils in aid of the fund-raising drive which raised more than £200.

Another big boost for the appeal has come from a man who coached Yasmin when she was a promising teenage athlete.

The coach, Dave Curwell, has promised that, if the appeal total stands at £6,000 or more by early July, he will top up the fund to take the total up to £10,000.

But all the good news has come just after Yasmin suffered a sudden crisis in her condition which meant she had to be admitted to York District Hospital. "She's very sleepy,." Bella said.

Yasmin's friend and carer, Debbie Walker, said today that her condition was gradually improving since last Thursday's relapse, and the boost to the fundraising would help raise her morale.

"It's fantastic. It's really good news," she said.

Yasmin has been determined to go to the Schachter Centre in New York since she read in the Evening Press how cancer victim Gail Hepworth, from Hemingbrough, near Selby, raised more than £10,000 last autumn to go there, and had subsequently enjoyed a tremendous improvement in her condition.

Debbie said the appeal stood at £3,500, with money from the school and a fundraising day at the Gimcrack pub in Fulford Road next month still to come in.

Dame Judi, who attended the school 40 years ago, was at the school to lay the foundation stone of a new £750,000 sports hall.

She is a patron of The Mount School Foundation, which has been raising money for a new sports hall development due to open in the autumn, for the past two years.

She said: "Coming here today is as though it was my first day all over again!"