Caravan craned in for boy's holiday at home

Adele is smiling and standing in front of the pop-up caravan in her garden. There is a privet hedge on the left and a bathtub.Image source, Natalie Bell/BBC
Image caption,

Reuben's mum, Adele, after fundraising efforts helped make her wish to bring a folding caravan into her garden a reality

  • Published

The mum of a Hull boy with leukaemia has thanked the community for helping buy him a caravan so he can enjoy his summer holidays.

Reuben, 11, desperately wanted a trip away but his illness meant he could not be too far from home.

Friends held car boot sales and fundraising events to purchase the pop-up caravan after Reuben's mum, Adele, found one that would fit into their back garden.

A crane company volunteered to lift the folding mobile home into position.

Image source, Natalie Bell / BBC
Image caption,

A crane was used to lift the folding caravan into the garden

Reuben was diagnosed with Leukaemia in 2023 and travels to Leeds for chemotherapy.

He had experienced pains in his legs and lower back before being diagnosed with the childhood type of blood cancer.

Adele told the BBC: “Reuben loves camping and he had said previously it would be amazing if we had a caravan.

"So a few months ago I started looking at different caravans online, thinking I wonder how far you can crane them?"

Image caption,

Reuben had enjoyed a friend's caravan and told his mum it was "amazing"

She explained after posting on social media a "community effort" had come together to winch the caravan into place.

"It is so wonderful of them because it would have cost a reasonable amount of money, which we don’t have," she said.

“It was a bit surreal when it got lifted in because I am one for big ideas but I questioned whether I’d measured it wrong and worried if it didn’t fit but it fits just perfectly in the garden."

Adele said it would allow Reuben to have a "really exciting summer" and hoped when he looked back "this will give him a positive reminder of the time that he’s going through".

"All of us growing up would have loved a caravan in our back garden, so it just gives him that childhood back," she said.

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