The family of a six-year-old boy whose tummy bug turned out to be a brain tumour say he is on the road to recovery.

Cranbrook Primary School pupil Logan Russell began to feel unwell shortly before Easter, and his parents Sharon and Dennis were advised to give him Gaviscon by his GP.

But after the sickness got progressively worse they took him to Tunbridge Wells Hospital for tests and an MRI scan.

There they received the news no parent can prepare for – there was an aggressive golf ball-sized tumour on the youngster’s brain.

Mr Russell, 50, of Huntington Close, said: “We just thought it was a funny tummy. We had no idea why they were scanning his head when it was a sickness thing.

“When you are standing in the operating theatre while your son is going under and you know it is a high risk operation, it breaks you.

“It has been very traumatic but you just have to get your chin up and put a smile on and get on with it as best you can.

“I lost my brother to cancer when he was four and I was determined I wouldn’t lose my son.”

The six-year-old underwent an operation to remove the tumour, which is thought to have grown in just two and a half months, at King’s College Hospital in June.

He is now on a nine-month treatment programme, which includes radiotherapy and chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Mr Russell, who maintains the grounds at Cranbrook School, said: “The worst part was the first few weeks where he wasn’t eating and wasn’t with it.

“There were kids coming in after him and having similar operations and they were up playing football the next day while he was just lying there.

“He had problems with his eyes and his heart rate was going down to just 25bpm. He really went through the ringer.

“One day he turned to me and said: ‘I just want to be normal’.

“It is a very, very sad thing but everyone has been so nice and supportive.

“He had his sixth birthday at the hospital and when they came to collect him for radiotherapy there were balloons and ribbons decorating his trolley.”

The pupils at Logan’s school, in Carriers Road, have all signed a card for him and staff including the head teacher have been to visit him in hospital.

Friends also held a fun day yesterday to raise money for Logan, with a five-a-side football tournament, bouncy castle and tug o’ war at Scott Field.

Mr Russell has also done a sponsored head shave and will next month walk the 23-mile return trip between the two hospitals that have treated his son to raise money for them both.