Three little candles flickering on a Thomas the Tank Engine cake brought birthday magic to the face of a little Ukrainian orphan - for the first time. Luda Balan was three years old this week.

But no one had ever baked a cake for her before, or given her presents. Her long dark days in a cold and stark orphanage are over for good. In their place is all the fun and warmth of a loving family home.

Luda's eyes widened with delight as she saw the spread of goodies that her carers, Elaine and Jerry Chomyszak, had prepared for her in their Tibthorpe home near Driffield. And she was bowled over by the walking, talking teddy bear the Hull Daily Mail newspaper gave her.

Everyone had forgotten this was the week when the tiny flaxen-haired infant could have been wrenched away from the couple she adores and put on a plane back to the Ukraine because her six-month visa had expired.

Thanks to Mail readers, who supported our Let Luda Stay campaign, she now has a passport that says she can live here permanently and have the surgery she needs to improve her crippling genetic condition.

But this was no day for looking back, not when you have the chance of a great future ahead. It was a time for littering the carpet with wrapping paper, torn excitedly from gifts Luda received from the friends she invited to her birthday tea.

And also a day for happy chatter, as the youngster revelled in the pleasures of her first real birthday celebrations.

Elaine, a 58-year-old supply teacher, said: "We have not come down from cloud nine yet after getting Home Office permission for Luda to stay here.

"Our GP has referred her through social services for the treatment she needs at Sheffield Children's Hospital. It is just a matter of time before surgeons decide on the programme of treatment she needs.

"The important thing is that, thanks to the help and support of Mail readers and all our other friends, that treatment will now happen."

She added: "Luda's condition means that she can't use her arms and legs as other children do, but she doesn't seem to regard that as a drawback.
"She gets about by scooting across the floor on her tummy and uses her mouth to pick things up.
"She has a tremendous determination to be independent and that will stand her in good stead for the years of surgery that lie ahead."

Luda has celebrity status everywhere she goes now.
Elaine said: "A trip to the shops is a time-consuming business because everybody wants to stop and talk to Luda."