A PUB in Melksham is staging a fundraising event in August to raise up to £5,000 for a six-year-old local boy with a rare and progressive illness.

Marston’s The Water Meadow pub in Verbena Court has organised the event from 10am on Saturday, August 19 to raise funds for Curtis Lowe, who has a rare genetic degenerative neurometabolic disorder called Metachromatic Leukodystrophy Disease.

MLD affects one in 40,000 people people, primarily children. 
It is an inherited disease but parents are typically not affected. At present, there is no cure.

Curtis, of Bowden Crescent, was diagnosed with the disease at the age of four when teachers at Rivermead Primary School in Melksham noticed he kept losing his balance. 

His condition has worsened to the point where he cannot eat or communicate. He has to be fed through a tube in his stomach and cannot talk or walk.

Curtis’s mother, Claire Lowe, 41, who works as a lunchtime supervisor at Rivermead, said: “Hopefully, we will be able to raise the money. So far, we have raised more than £400 through local events.”

She and her husband, Chris, 53, who is not working, have an elder daughter Seline, 17. Mrs Lowe says it has been “heartbreaking” to see Curtis’s health deteriorate over the past two years. 

Now pub managers James Morrall and George Raikes-May hope to raise £5,000 to buy a special I-glazing tablet, which will enable Curtis to communicate with his family, and a hydrotherapy apparatus to help with his everyday physiotherapy.

Anyone who wishes to donate raffle prizes for the fundraising event should contact The Water Meadow on 01225 582006.