www.welshnewsextra.com Open in urlscan Pro
185.119.173.190  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

GET http://www.welshnewsextra.com/

<form role="search" method="get" class="search-form" action="http://www.welshnewsextra.com/">
  <label>
    <span class="screen-reader-text">Search for:</span>
    <input type="search" class="search-field" placeholder="Search …" value="" name="s" title="Search for:">
  </label>
  <input type="submit" class="search-submit" value="Search">
</form>

Text Content

 * News
 * Business
 * Arts
 * Education
 * Tourism
 * Sport

Search for:


FAMILY OF DISABLED YOUNGSTER ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY FOR
CHARITY


March 13, 2018



The family of a seriously disabled boy are encouraging people to dance the night
away to raise funds for a charity that has helped them.

Oliver Coxon was born with his intestines outside his body, later developing
brain damage and cerebral palsy – and almost died during a vital operation when
he was just months old.

Now aged four, he spent much of the first year of his life in hospital and his
parents  Stewart and Suzanne provide round-the-clock care for him at the
family’s home.

North Wales children’s charity Happy Faces has provided support over the past 18
months, with the latest donation – a specially adapted £700 car seat –  enabling
Stewart to take him on trips out.

The charity will be raising funds at a Ballroom Blitz dance evening, as part of
the popular Colwyn Bay Forties Festival, and Stewart is encouraging people to
join the celebrations.

The family-focused festival, on Saturday April 21 and Sunday April 22,
celebrates the town’s strategic war-time role in keeping Britain fed, when the
Ministry of Food set up its HQ there.

This year’s festival features full-sized replicas of a Spitfire and a Hurricane,
with the town invaded by fans of the era, dressed in vintage style or military
uniforms.

There will be re-enactments of battle skirmishes at Eirias Park on Sunday, April
22 plus displays of military vehicles, Llandudno’s tram and war-time weapons
along with heritage tours. Colwyn Bay’s streets will host performances by
Forties style performers plus local food producers, wartime ephemera and
nostalgia items.

Ballroom Blitz, on Saturday April 21, at the Barn in Zip World Stadium in Eirias
Park, features DJ Malcolm Murray, vintage singer Clara Bloom and the Ukulele
Party Band with Reflections.

The festival, the seventh to be held,  has been organised by the Bay of Colwyn
Business Network and is backed by Bay of Colwyn Town Council, printers Powlsons
plus Colwyn Business Improvement District (BID), which is aiming to revitalise
the area.

Stewart, who was a supervisor at Cineworld in Llandudno Junction for six years,
said: “The car seat is absolutely amazing and it came at the perfect time.
Oliver had grown out of the other one so this is much more comfy for him now. He
looks like he’s sitting on a throne!

“It means that I will able to take Oliver out in the car to events such as the
Forties Festival. My dad, who is also called Stewart, will be going along to the
Ballroom Blitz dance evening, where a raffle and collection will raise funds for
Happy Faces.

“The charity has been a massive help to us and done so much, such as buying a
floor seat, which has made a huge difference to Oliver’s life.”

Colwyn BID project manager Anna Openshaw said: “We are expecting thousands of
visitors to the Forties Festival as there will be so much for families to enjoy,
all free, on the streets of Colwyn Bay.

“For many older people it’s a real trip down memory lane, as they can recall the
town when it was taken over by the Ministry. It’s also a real chance for younger
people to see what life was like for their relatives.

“One of the most popular events is the evening Ballroom Blitz Dance evening –
there will be great music and it’s a chance to get dressed up in some fabulous
vintage clothes, plus it will be raising funds for a very worthwhile charity,
Happy Faces, helping families such as Oliver’s.”

Oliver spent the first ten months of his life in Alder Hey Children’s Hospital
in Liverpool, with his parents staying in the Ronald MacDonald House on-site,
and big sister Autumn attending a nearby school.

Stewart said: “That period was hell for us. It was the worst ten months of our
entire lives.

“He’s been through more in that space of time than most people go through in a
lifetime.

“Oliver was born with gastroschisis so basically his intestines and some of his
organs were on the outside.

“When you’re in the womb your stomach comes together in three parts but that
didn’t happen with Oliver.

“It was very much touch and go whether he’d survive. He wasn’t breathing at
first but once they got him on a ventilator his intestines and organs were
wrapped in what was like a cellophane wrap and we were sent to Alder Hey.

“He had roughly ten operations in total while he was there. Once he was able to
breath by himself we spent three months in the baby unit.

“During that time he had operations to put the intestines and organs back
inside.”

Unfortunately for Oliver he suffered a series of infections, which lead to
further time in hospital.

Stewart said: “There was an issue with his bowels and they wanted to check
whether he had Hirschsprung disease – though it turned out he didn’t. However,
he bled for three days and almost died. He had to have blood transfusions over
the course of a weekend.

“Then his bowel burst due to a mishap with a vac patch so he had to undergo
another major operation, when they had to remove part of his bowel. It was never
ending and we really did think he was on his last legs.”

Having managed to overcome that ordeal, Oliver’s parents were dealt another
heartbreaking blow before they finally left Alder Hey.

Stewart explained: “By the time he was four or five months he was making some
sounds and words but then it stopped.

“He couldn’t say anything and became more limp. Sue noticed this and was adamant
there was an issue.

“She was with him every day as I was still working a couple of days a week back
then. She could see something wasn’t right. He wasn’t the same child.

“At nine months he had a CT scan which showed that a quarter of Oliver’s brain
was missing and he had cerebral palsy.

“They couldn’t pinpoint when it happened. It was devastating for us.”

Although the past four years have been tough they have made some progress with
Oliver, said Stewart.

“It’s hard, you have to watch him all the time. We sleep in the same room as him
so we’re there with him constantly. We have to help him eat and change him.
Oliver has to be in a wheelchair so you literally have to do everything for him.

“But it’s all worth it when you get a smile off Oliver and after months and
months of working at it he can say mum and dad, which means the world to us.
He’s eating normally too.

“He goes to school at Ysgol Gogarth for a couple of hours every afternoon, which
gives us some respite, and now and again he’ll stay overnight, which means we
can dedicate time to our daughter Autumn.”

Stewart senior was so touched by the generosity of Happy Faces that he became a
volunteer and is now a member of the committee. The charity was set up by Ray
Herbert from Colwyn Bay in 2003 to help sick, disabled and disadvantaged
children in the region.

The retired 70-year-old, who lives next door to his son in Llandudno Junction,
said: “I was at an antique fair and the charity had a table top sale there. I
got talking to Ray about Oliver and he offered to put his case to the committee.

“My son was with me at the time. Next thing we know we’ve been given a seat for
Oliver to put on the floor as he’s unable to sit up by himself.

“I thought if you can do that for my grandson then I can help do it for others
and that’s how it all came about. It’s a fantastic charity and I love being a
part of it.”

Stewart, who has 12 grandchildren, says the new car seat has been a “lifeline”
for Oliver.

He said: “When you think of a new car seat you imagine the cost to be around
£100.

“But because Oliver is severely disabled it’s £700. You can’t afford that kind
of money so Happy Faces is a lifeline.

“The good thing is the seat will now last him until he’s 12 and all being well
he won’t need another after that.”

The Forties Festival be a trip down memory lane for many of the town’s visitors
and residents, from when Colwyn Bay played a key role in keeping war-time
Britain fed.

The town became home to the Ministry of Food’s HQ  with its head, businessman
Lord Woolton, setting up his office in Colwyn Bay Hotel on the Promenade.

More than 5,000 staff moved to the town, launching campaigns such as Dig For
Victory and overseeing the supply of food on the Home Front through ration
books.

In 1940 the Ministry’s civil servants were moved from Whitehall to North Wales
to escape the German bombing raids and free up space in London for the War
Office.

They requisitioned 38 hotels in the town, including the fashionable Metropole,
and The Queens, along with large houses as offices or places to live for the
staff.  At the Imperial officials monitored ships going into and out of
Liverpool.

The Ministry’s bread division was based at the Edelweiss Hotel, the bacon and
ham division at the Mount Stewart Hotel and the cocoa and chocolate department
at the Colwyn Bay Hotel. The workers also took over Rydal School, which was
evacuated to the Sychnant Pass in Conwy, and Penrhos College, with pupils moving
to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

The last department – the Bakery Finance Division – left the town on 29
September 1956.

More about the Colwyn Bay Forties Festival at colwynbaybusiness.co.uk


 * 
 * 
 * 

This entry was posted in Business, Community, Featured, Health, History, News,
Young people. Bookmark the permalink.


POST NAVIGATION

← Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross review
Sponsor a String appeal will be prelude to success for talented harpists of the
future →
 * Popular
 * Latest


 * TALENTED QUINTET SCORE MUSICAL SUCCESS
   
   August 19, 2021


 * HEALTH MINISTER HAILS HIGH STANDARDS AT WREXHAM CARE ORGANISATION
   
   September 11, 2014


 * SAY CHEERS WITH WREXHAM LAGER CHOCOLATE AT HAMPER LLANGOLLEN
   
   September 15, 2014


 * TRIO OF WREXHAM ACCOUNTANTS TAKE BIG STEP UP CAREER LADDER AT COXEYS
   
   September 18, 2014


 * FIRST MINISTER CARWYN JONES HAILS VILLAGE BAKERY FOR PIONEERING ACADEMY
   
   September 23, 2014


 * TALENTED QUINTET SCORE MUSICAL SUCCESS
   
   August 19, 2021


 * COLTS UP AND RUNNING THANKS TO CASH SEIZED FROM CRIMINALS
   
   August 19, 2021


 * EXPANSION IS RECIPE FOR SUCCESS FOR WALES’S BEST-KNOWN BUTCHER
   
   August 18, 2021


 * SUZUKI SWACE DRIVE BY STEVE ROGERS
   
   August 18, 2021


 * NEW SUPER BAKERY IS ON A ROLL
   
   August 18, 2021


 * NEW SUPPORT FOR CRIME VICTIMS WITH MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES
   
   March 3, 2016


 * GROWING SPORTS SCHEME HELPS TACKLE DRUGS BARONS
   
   December 17, 2019


 * HEAD PRAISES “FANTASTIC” PUPILS FOR 100% PASS RATE
   
   August 12, 2021


 * AMLWCH COMMUNITY HEROES WIN AWARD
   
   June 7, 2017


 * HISTORY MAKER WINSTON RODDICK STANDS DOWN AS POLICE BOSS
   
   March 8, 2016


CATEGORIES

 * Arts (372)
 * Business (1,386)
 * Charity (411)
 * Community (2,013)
 * Education (233)
 * Entertainment (496)
 * Environment (123)
 * Featured (2,024)
 * Food (345)
 * Health (1,061)
 * History (114)
 * News (3,329)
 * Sport (217)
 * technology (192)
 * Tourism (141)
 * Young people (332)


ARCHIVES

 * August 2021
 * July 2021
 * June 2021
 * May 2021
 * April 2021
 * March 2021
 * February 2021
 * January 2021
 * December 2020
 * November 2020
 * October 2020
 * September 2020
 * August 2020
 * July 2020
 * June 2020
 * May 2020
 * April 2020
 * March 2020
 * February 2020
 * January 2020
 * December 2019
 * November 2019
 * October 2019
 * September 2019
 * August 2019
 * July 2019
 * June 2019
 * May 2019
 * April 2019
 * March 2019
 * February 2019
 * January 2019
 * December 2018
 * November 2018
 * October 2018
 * September 2018
 * August 2018
 * July 2018
 * June 2018
 * May 2018
 * April 2018
 * March 2018
 * February 2018
 * January 2018
 * December 2017
 * November 2017
 * October 2017
 * September 2017
 * August 2017
 * July 2017
 * June 2017
 * May 2017
 * April 2017
 * March 2017
 * February 2017
 * January 2017
 * December 2016
 * November 2016
 * October 2016
 * September 2016
 * August 2016
 * July 2016
 * June 2016
 * May 2016
 * April 2016
 * March 2016
 * February 2016
 * January 2016
 * December 2015
 * November 2015
 * October 2015
 * September 2015
 * August 2015
 * July 2015
 * June 2015
 * May 2015
 * April 2015
 * March 2015
 * February 2015
 * January 2015
 * December 2014
 * November 2014
 * October 2014
 * September 2014


WELSH PHOTOS FROM FLICKR





EXPLORE THE SITE

 * About Us
 * Contact us

Copyright © 2021 WelshNewsExtra.com