ONE OF OUR STORIES JUST BACKFIRED HORRENDOUSLY, AND WE APOLOGISE …

At Southend News Network, quite a lot of our content is based upon pictures that fly into our inbox one way or another, and a couple of days ago we couldn’t resist using one of these images to talk about a lady who had received two door numbers the wrong way round – a ‘5’ and a ‘4’ that were useless because her house number was ’45’.

It turns out that the image had originally been posted online a little while back by a lady called Lauren Wilks for an unrelated situation, and she was a little bit miffed that so many different websites and social media channels had picked up her photo and just done whatever they liked with it.

She got in touch with us to let us know the error of our ways, and unlike the majority of other websites who would have probably just said ‘tough titties’ and told her to bugger off, we decided to make Lauren an offer.

We said that she could have a ‘free shot’ and give us anything that she wanted to be posted online, and here it is.

Tragically, her best friend Nathan Slade passed away last year as a result of epilepsy at the age of 26 – this is known medically as SUDEP, or ‘Sudden Death from Epilepsy.’ This is the last photo of Lauren and Nathan together.

Lauren said: He was diagnosed with epilepsy at a very young age, and his doctors changed his epilepsy medication numerous times in the year before he died. On August 14th 2015, he was found by his girlfriend at the time and sadly he had passed away. He was an excellent bowler and played at the local bowling alley AMF Bowl with my partner Daniel Martin. Their team name was ‘The Thrusters’ as they used to thrust whenever they got a strike!

His twin sister Taryn Slade and his mum Toni Slade have done numerous fundraising activities since his death, including a coast-to-coast bike ride and a charity ball in his memory this past October. She has raised in excess of £30,000 so far in the past 16 months!

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