UPDATE >>>

Dear The Kidz who are so lovingly and generously taking part in the JON POOLE JustGiving - there now follows a message from the man himself- from him, to you...>>>>>

'A message for all fellow love-heads:

Not sure where to begin with this so I'll just jump straight in and say that I'm massively humbled and overwhelmed (in a good way!) by the extreme kindness shown to myself and my family from those of you who have wished us well and /or donated to the justgiving campaign that was very kindly set up for my family as an extreme act of kindness by the Queen of love that is Jo Spratley.

People's kindness and comments have really helped during this messed up time (some of which genuinely made me laugh...I think the 'kidz' call that LOLing...or something).

I am more than aware that this difficult time has been tough on everyone, some more than others and I can't believe how kind people have been and how people have made me feel loved and appreciated so all I can do, which I think I owe you, is give you as brief a version as possible of recent events that took place when this all kicked off:

About 7 or 8 weeks ago when this virus stuff kicked off, my wife became very ill.

She ended up with severe pneumonia, should have been admitted to hospital but couldn't risk going there as she has diabetes and an auto immune disorder so is 'high risk' in the present climate and pneumonia is an extreme danger to her.

She was given the biggest dose of antibiotics and steroids known to man and had to be under 24 hour supervision at home by me. (reassuring right?)

To cut a long story short she got so bad she nearly died.

Freaks you out, that.

Thankfully she's doing much, much better than she was now but I'm still monitoring her and she still has health issues due to the illness.

To add to this my 10 year old son, Evan got ill and had a seizure which was a worry and his temperature went right up.

This was just before news of the virus hit then after Louise got ill he had another couple of days of high temperature/sickness.

Then I got ill and via the phone our doctor told us that everything points to the fact that we've all had it/got it.

But this is 'over the phone' so who really knows? We weren't allowed to go in and be tested.

We are still not 100% with weird lingering symptoms one of which I can only describe as feeling like our lungs have been replaced with the next size up!

I'm just hoping it's the aftermath of the illness and it'll pass.

I guess if we have had it and beaten it then that's a good thing.

But it's the not knowing either way.

But blah blah blah...the real reason I'm writing this 'novel' of a message is to send my love and extreme gratitude to you who have helped us through this difficult time.

As I say, I feel more than a little humbled, shocked that I meant enough to people to show me such kindness and have a bigger sense than ever of us love-heads all being in this together.

Please know how much your kindness means to me.

You've all made me feel very fortunate to have your support.

Thank you all and thank you Jo.

Love from The Pooles Xxx'

And from me, a special thanks to those who help so much by sharing the thing. You utterly rule. Love always, Jo Spratley X