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A six-year-old boy has overcome disability to walk a mile a day in an effort to raise money for the NHS.
Wilberforce Turpin, known as Wilber, has a rare chromosome abnormality which has a major impact on his life and makes it difficult for him to walk – but the youngster, from Chatham, is attempting to walk 10 miles in 10 days.
KMTV cover Wilber's challenge
Wilber, from Purbeck Road, set out on his mission last Monday and completed the walk on Thursday afternoon, having raised more than £4,000 in the process.
In a bizarre twist, Wilber's grandad Keith once worked with the now legendary Captain Tom Moore, who has won international renown for his fundraising efforts this year and is due to celebrate his 100th birthday today.
Mum Elizabeth explained it was Captain Tom's efforts which inspired her and husband Rupert – a Medway councillor – to get involved.
"Rupert was thinking that maybe we could do something similar and raise some funds," she said. "Being in lockdown I'm a bit limited in what I can do because of having to look after Wilber and I need to be with him all the time, so I thought if we could involve him with the activity then that would be it.
"He needs to get out and do his exercise anyway which he was doing once day. We were quite surprised that he was walking half a mile when we were taking him out each day so we thought we could double that and get him walking a mile a day and raise some money at the same time."
Nevertheless, she explained the Chromosone 6 abnormality which affects Wilber had made the challenge a tough one.
"It's had a major impact on his life," she added. "He's got global development delay, he's partially sighted, he's got moderate hearing loss, and he's small in stature – he's got a lot of things going on for him bless him.
"He's only really been walking with the aid of a walker for 18 months and he needs that, he can't take any steps without it.
"It's quite a struggle for him but he does love getting up and walking. It's a fairly new thing to him.
"We started last Monday. He goes out in the morning and then again in the evening and does half a mile each time. He's completed seven and a half miles now and should be finishing Wednesday evening.
"There's days that he's found really difficult," she said, speaking on Tuesday. "Yesterday I did have to pick him up and carry him home the last 50 metres. We put some updates on his Facebook page and we'll have to fit that extra 50 metres in at some point, bless him.
"He's had some nasty insect bites on both of his legs and they've swollen up which hasn't helped. After about day three I was thinking 'uh-oh I'm not sure he's going to be able to do this' because he was finding it difficult.
"Day three and four were tricky but by day five I thought actually he's picked up some strength here and it's helped, and he had a good run until yesterday until he struggled a bit, but he's improving."
As of Thursday this week the JustGiving site had raised £4,473, and counting.
"We had an initial target of £500," added Elizabeth. "We could see we surpassed that quite early so we put it up to £2,000, then we went past that so we increased it to £4,000. We're really pleased with the support of friends and family and further and how it's really taken off. People have got behind him and really want to support him."
She also explained how Wilber's grandad Keith knew Captain Tom as he was the managing director of March Concrete Products Ltd in the 1980s, where Keith worked for 21 years.
"Initially he hadn't made that connection," said Elizabeth. "When I read it online I rang up my dad and he was like 'oh my goodness', he knew the name immediately. Because of the captain bit it had thrown him because he only knew him as Tom or Mr Moore."
