MUM-OF-THREE Chris Stockton spent her entire life defying doctors.

First she was told she wouldn’t live beyond the age of seven and then she was told she would never be able to have her own children.

But from the moment Chris developed the severe auto immune illness dermatomyositis at the age of four, she never stopped battling – right up until her death last month at the age of 47.

Her mum, Pamela Allan, said: “Nothing ever stopped her. She always used to say, ‘I’m not disabled, I’m just in this body that doesn’t work properly’.”

“If anyone said to her, ‘You won’t be able to do that’, she used to reply, ‘Won’t I? You watch me.’ Whatever she decided to do she did it.

“She was only a tiny little thing, but she had the heart and courage of a lion. She had so much guts and determination.

“She was always in a lot of pain, but she never complained and she had a wicked sense of humour.”

Chris, whose illness caused her own body to wreck her muscles, was confined to a wheelchair from the age of 12 – but went on to have three children, Pamela, 29, Graham, 26, and Deana, 24.

A specially-adapted vehicle, presented to her in the early 1990s by ex-Prime Minister John Major, enabled her to live independently and take her children to school and on trips.

Her sister, Elaine Murray, said: “Chris was a social butterfly. She used to attract people like a magnet because she was a lovely, lovely person.

“She never ever thought about herself, it was always other people. Even though she was really, really poorly at the end, she still bought everybody Christmas presents.

“Once you had met her you would never forget her.

“She was very intelligent and very vivacious.

“When we were younger we used to go up town to the nightclub. Four bouncers would carry her up the stairs and then she would dance in her wheelchair with all the blokes dancing around her.

“She has battled her whole life and she was an inspiration to us all. I feel privileged to have had her in my life and I’m going to be lost without her. I feel like a piece of me is missing.”

Chris, who lived in an adapted bungalow in Clifton, York, and used to hold Ann Summers’ parties at people’s houses, also leaves behind her 12-year-old grandson, Leigh, and two brothers, Keith and Martyn.