Friends mourn Lanarkshire bus crash victim Natasha Payton

HUNDREDS of mourners today paid colourful tribute to a teenager who died when a bus taking her on a school trip crashed in blizzard conditions.

• Natasha Paton's purple coffin is carried into Holytown Crematorium

Natasha Paton was killed when the coach she was travelling in collided with a bridge and dropped into a river near Wiston, Lanarkshire last Wednesday.

The 17-year-old was travelling with fellow Lanark Grammar School pupils on a day-trip to the Alton Towers theme park when the accident happened just 10 miles from her home in Cleghorn.

Natasha's parents requested mourners wore bright colours to today's service at St Nicholas Parish Church in Lanark to celebrate their daughters life.

Classmates arrived wearing specially-created hoodies while others dressed in purple, Natasha's favourite colour.

The church, which holds 700 people, was almost full by 1pm and mourners also lined the pavements outside the building in Lanark High Street.

Her family, also wearing splashes of purple, linked arms as they walked into the church. The service was led by the Reverend Sarah Ross, who is also chaplain at the school.

Earlier in the day there was a private funeral service at Holytown Crematorium.

The service started with Michael Buble's Haven't Met You Yet, and the Leona Lewis song I Got You was also played.

• Natasha Paton (left) died in a bus accident during last week's heavy snowfall

Ms Ross, the school chaplain, described Natasha as a "lovely person who touched many more lives than she realised".

She said: "This service can only begin to touch on the life of Natasha, so I encourage you to use your own memories to fill in the bits we don't remember today and share them with each other.

"We are incredibly sad that she is no longer with us and we would do anything to have her back.

"But that does not mean we cannot enjoy the memories, share our stories and laugh as well as cry."

She went on: "The family tell me that Natasha would have loved all of this attention.

• Natasha's family asked her friends to wear colourful clothes to a celebration of her life at St Nicholas Parish Church in Lanark

"The family want this to be as uplifting as Natasha was with her smile and her nature."

The chaplain followed with a prayer and said: "We won't ever forget her, she meant too much to us.

"She was a lovely person who touched many more lives than she realised."

A poem was then read out by fellow people and close friend Kerry Stevenson.