Huddersfield company's battle to help little Edward Ackroyd

Jun 26 2009 By Emma Davison

Richard Kitchen-Dunn heard about Edward’s story at a business conference during which Tony Ackroyd was a speaker.

Richard said: “Tony was telling the conference about this disease and 95% of the people in the room – including me – had never heard of it.

“It was quite a touching story and while our company does donate to lots of charities, we decided this cause deserved special support.”

Richard has presented the Ackroyds with a cheque for £3,300 for Action Duchenne – and has pledged to give the charity a percentage of the takings from every Christmas display contract KD Decorative undertakes this year.

Heidy, who lives at Denshaw, said: “Edward did not walk and crawl until quite late on, but as all kids are different we did not see any problem.

“When he was three-and-a-half, the people at his pre-school said they were concerned about his development and suggested we get him checked out by a paediatrician. She knew at once what was wrong.”.

Heidy said the family were shocked at the news – and the fact that as she was the carrier. It was only pure luck that her other sons, Samuel, eight, and three-year-old Thomas did not have DMD. The Ackroyds traced back through their family tree, but could find no evidence of DMD.

Heidy said: “It seems the gene that causes DMD can skip several generations. It is always carried by the female, but it does not always appear. We know one family with three sons who all have DMD, but in our case only Edward has it.”

Heidy said: “Edward gets full support at school and he loves life. He loves going to school and playing out. But there will come a time in the near future when we will have to explain to him in a nice way that he has poorly muscles and that the doctors are doing all they can to find a cure.”

Details: www.actionduchenne.org. To donate: www.justgiving.com/sayhellotoedward