A brave 10-year-old boy who has an inoperable brain tumour has spoken of his excitement as he prepares to take to the catwalk at an exclusive fashion show this weekend.
Stanley Galloway, who lives in the Branksome area of Darlington, will be joined by his mother Katrina and younger brother Reggie, eight, when he travels to London.
He will be taking part on Saturday (November 25) in Ravi’s Dream Fashion Show - a one-off fashion show raising awareness for those affected by brain tumours and set up by eight-year-old Ravi Adelekan.
Ravi, of Brighton, won Pride of Britain’s ‘Child of Courage Award’ this year, aims to raising £100k for brain tumour charities, the Brain Tumour Charity and Braintrust.
The future-themed event will include prize draw of items modelled on the catwalk by 20 brave children whose lives, like Ravi, have been affected by brain tumours.
Stanley, who deals with unresolved pain, is home-educated and remains active with a wide range of interests.
Speaking to The Northern Echo, he said: "I'm really excited. I never thought I would be in a fashion show. I have never been to London before either. It’s really exciting."
Stanley, who has pilocytic astrocytoma – a tumour on the brain stem the same as Ravi - said he is looking forward to meeting the fellow Newcastle United supporter at the weekend.
He said: "I am an artist and love scootering. I enjoy doing tricks at the skate park. I have been working all day drawing.
"I also like Pokemon trading with all my friends. And I enjoy the computer game Roblox. I also love dogs.
"My mother has shown me what I’ll be wearing. It is a silver jacket with black jeans and metallic stuff. They’ll be doing my make-up and hair when I get there.
Katrina, 40, who used to work as a childminder and is now caring full time for Stanley, said: "His brother Reggie will be going with us.
"He has a bit of time of it well, with us being in hospital.
"Stanley got diagnosed at the age of nine, just before Christmas last year, so spent Christmas in hospital. He was very poorly.
"They did a craniotomy to try and remove what they could – they could only get a little bit – but they got a biopsy.
"And that gave us good news really, because it said it was a low-grade gliamo (a family of slow growing tumours that arise from glial cells).
She added: "He’s got back to it now and has been learning very hard over the summer and he’s scootering away now.
"He does three-hour sessions at the skate park. He’s just living with constant head pain at the minute."
"We are having regular MRIs to see if there is any change going on.
"He just had an MRI on Friday. Stanley’s a real trooper – he always sick when they give him the dye He did really well. He watches Paddington while he has his MRIs."
Katrina said: "All the family are really excited to watch him as well. We are looking forward to seeing him walk the catwalk."
Ahead of the event, those wishing to purchase celebrity style will be able to do so for as little as £1, in an exciting online draw that went live today via ravisdream.com/fashion-show.
A live stream of the fashion show which starts at 5pm on Saturday can be seen on Ravi’s Instagram @ravis_dream
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