MUSICIAN Pete Middleton has used his talents to help send his seriously ill daughter on a journey which hopefully will put her on the road to health. Watchet-based Pete has raised hundreds of pounds by busking outside Minehead Railway Station and securing donations from friends and supporters. His efforts have led to the success of an appeal to raise just over £26,000 to send his daughter Claire Hubbard to America for vital treatment. Claire, a 47-year-old teacher and mother of two from Staffordshire, has spent the last four years battling a chronic brain condition. Diagnosed as suffering from intracranial hypotension, she has endured daily seizures and unbearable pain after leaks in her cerebrospinal fluid caused her brain to sink into her skull. Neurosurgeons have been unable to locate the source of the leak, let along patch it, but concluded that her best hope of recovery was to seek the help of specialists in North Carolina. Pete, a 77-year-old retired engineer who is well known as a member of the West Somerset Brass Band and jazz groups the Dark Town Strutters and Jazz Gents, said his family was now hopeful that the end of Claire's chronic health problems was in sight. "Enough money has been raised for Claire to travel with her twin sister Louise to the Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina," he said. It is expected that Dr Linda Gray, who recently guided UK doctors through an operation involving ten lumbar punctures, will provide the final treatment Claire requires. "As a result of that operation Claire is now fit to travel and the arrangements are currently being made," said Pete. "We are all keeping our fingers crossed." Pete, who plays baritone horn for the brass band, hit the right notes with his clarinet for his busking sessions. In the first at the end of May he raised £105, bringing in a further £135 with the second just under a fortnight ago. But more than £1,560 came from friends and Free Press readers, who learnt about Claire's plight in an earlier story that appeared in the paper. "I've had terrific support from local people, for which I am so grateful," said Pete. "We are just hoping that the treatment in America will give Claire her life back."