Sarah Harding gave personalised gifts to Girls Aloud bandmates to remember her after her death

Sarah Harding handed out personalised gifts to her Girls Aloud bandmates before she died.

The pop star passed away in 2021 at the age of 39 after a battle with breast cancer and the surviving members of the girl group have now revealed she gave them all a stone emblazoned with a personal message so they would have something to remember her after her death.

Bandmember Cheryl told the Guardian newspaper she was given a smooth white stone bearing the words "You are loved".

Kimberley Walsh added: "I thought they all said the same thing. Mine says ‘love’.”

Nicola Roberts went on to explain how Sarah gave the stones out, saying: "She brought a pouch with these stones in and we all picked one and I was last and mine – and this is hilarious – says ‘smile’."

Nadine Coyle revealed her stone bears the message "Hope".

The girl group are embarking on their first tour without Sarah this summer and Kimberley insisted they are making sure their friend's presence is felt at all the shows.

She said: "We’re not trying to pretend we’re not doing this without her – we feel that loss massively, on stage and in every song that we do. I really hope that we’ve done a good job of making her presence felt."

The bandmates previously revealed Sarah asked them to pull together a plan to celebrate the band's 20th anniversary without her. Although Sarah knew she was unlikely to make it to the band's milestone anniversary, she asked them to mark the occasion anyway.

Cheryl told The Sun newspaper's Bizarre column: "Sarah stayed with me for about a week and she was throwing around ideas of how we could celebrate 20 years of Girls Aloud while she was still here.

"At one point, she did say to us, ‘Even if I can’t make it, I hope you girls do it without me’.”