The physical likeness aside, mother and daughter clearly also share a striking cheerful determination and a strong, sense of duty and purpose.

Only six months after Jane Tomlinson lost her seven- year battle with breast cancer, her eldest daughter's instinct remains to keep
her life and thoughts close to home.

But today she is making a public appeal for help with the race which her family hope will be their mother's fundraising legacy.

On June 22, 11,000 runners will line-up for the second Leeds 10k: Jane Tomlinson's Run For All.

The 3,000 extra places on offer after the fantastic success of last year's inaugural event, which Jane Tomlinson was delighted to have been well enough to start, were filled very quickly.

But the success of the charity run also depends on hundreds of volunteers and the size of this year's race means that although almost all who offered help in 2007 are also helping out this year, almost 400 more are still needed.

Suzanne Tomlinson will herself be among those helping on June 22.

"I was told I was running this year. Dad said he thought we should all run this year."

Suzanne smiles. In the past, she has entered fundraising events alongside her mother, sharing her desire to always do things to the best of ability.

"I just said I'd have to walk! I'm so busy with studying and with my daughter, Emily, that I don't really have time to train. I would like to run in the future but I'd like to do it properly.

"I've decided instead to take more involvement in the volunteer side. We need so many more volunteers this year, because we have so many more runners taking part."

Suzanne was among the army of volunteers last year.

The fact her mother will be missing at the start and finish line will make it a very difficult day for Suzanne and her younger sister Rebecca, 19, and brother Steven, 10 and their father, Mike.

"I think it will be an emotional day, to think that the whole reason so many people will be there will be because of Mum.

"But also you don't realise how many people do have things like that in their lives and that it does affect everyone in some way," she adds.

"For those who can't run or didn't get a place, and I think there were a lot of people who would have liked to take part but who were surprised at how quickly places went, this is a way to have a presence and take part. Last year it was just such a fantastic day."

Losing your mother is hard, no matter what your age.

For Suzanne Tomlinson, 22, a first-time mother to 17-month-old Emily, her grief is not simply at losing her mother, but also sadness at how much of her granddaughter's life Jane was unable to see.

But Suzanne falls back on the strength and pragmatism she so admired in her mother.

"She got to see her which was amazing," she says. "And Emily knows who her grandma is; she points to her in photographs and says, 'Grandma'."

Her approach to coping with the devastation at her mother's death last September has been to focus on her family and her future.

Suzanne was among the family members with Jane during her final hours, which were spent at St Gemma's Hospice in Leeds.

The next morning she decided to go ahead and attend her first day at college.

She thinks it was probably a decision born out of the stress and confusion of her grief, but from that day forward Suzanne has continued to focus on her studies and is now nearing the end of her course and beginning to look for work as a secondary school RE teacher.

When her mother was first diagnosed with breast cancer, in 1990, it was only two months after surgery that she started a three-year study programme at Leeds Teaching Hospitals to become a radiographer – a career she continued throughout her illness.

"It has changed my outlook on life. I do things very differently. If you have an opportunity, you grab it, you don't think I'll do it next time, you might not get a next time. Especially with Emily, I just think you have to make the most of what you get and not keep wishing for something better.

"You have to make the most of what you have got and be thankful for it today.

"I know what I want to do and I know what I have to do if I want to get where I want to get in life.

"I think I get that from Mum," Suzanne says.

"I'm so busy, I just don't have time to think. Whether that is a good or a bad thing, I haven't come to the conclusion yet.

"When I stop, it might hit me. It felt a bit like that at Christmas. I just wanted to switch off from the outside world. It felt quite hard. But generally I have surprised myself."

Suzanne also decided to be at her father's side in the immediate aftermath of her mother's death to bring the family's concern about equality of access to groundbreaking medicine to the public eye.

At a time of such sadness, it seemed a brave move for a young woman to put herself in the media glare.

But uncomfortable as she felt, Suzanne saw it simply as fulfilling a promise to her mother and one she had no reservations about.

"We had spoken about it. It was something Mum wanted us to do," she said.

"I realised it was just something I needed to do. Mum had put herself at the forefront all the time, and at times when she herself didn't feel like being in the spotlight. It made sense."

Last week, the Tomlinson family went out to dinner on what would have been Jane's 44th birthday.

"It was really nice to go out, just the four of us. We had a really nice time," she says.

"It was nice not to be sad."

When Suzanne thinks of her mother, she focuses on the good times, she says, particularly of memories when they were children and all together as a family.

But she also has some difficult memories to deal with, particularly during the months when her mother's illness finally closed in.

Jane Tomlinson and her family had initially hoped she would be able to die at home. The gravity of her illness, however, made that impossible.

But it is not something which troubles Suzanne. In fact, she found great comfort in being at St Gemma's and from the staff there.

"They deserve so much respect. It must be so hard to be always around illness and death. They do such a fantastic job and the place is so lovely, the whole atmosphere is so calm."

In her final hours, Jane Tomlinson found peace with her fate through her faith.

Like her mother, Suzanne also has drawn great strength from her faith.

"I think you could go one of two ways," she says.

"Either you completely stop because of what happened and fall out with the big guy upstairs, or you use it to help make sense
of things."