Exclusive by Lucy Laing 18/01/2010
Jayne Rowson knows how brave her son Harry is. The schoolboy is fronting a striking poster campaign to help others after a house fire killed his dad and brother, and left him with extensive scars..
The scars are a constant reminder of the tragic house fire that killed his dad and beloved big brother. But hiding away has never appealed to brave schoolboy Harry Rowson.
The 11-year-old’s face is so badly disfigured he’s had to put up with the stares of strangers throughout his short life and still faces years of intense and painful skin-graft surgery.
But young Harry is so confident that, far from shying away, he is fronting a charity poster campaign that will see his picture emblazoned on Tube and bus stations across
“Harry is just fantastic,” says mum Jayne Rowson, 39. “I once asked him if he would prefer not to have his scars and he said he wouldn’t. He has so much confidence and tells me he likes the way he looks.”
The campaign for charity Changing Faces hopes to show how people with disfigurements like Harry should be treated the same way as everybody else. It is a message Jayne understands only too well.
After the blaze in which she lost her husband David and 10-year-old son Michael, she then faced the agony of not knowing if Harry would pull through.
And when he did she then had to cope with the heartache of seeing how other people reacted to his badly burned face.
“The first time I got on a bus with Harry after the fire, an old lady sitting nearby tutted and said ‘Young mums nowadays can’t look after their children’,” she recalls.
“I was so angry and told her she was a wicked old lady.
“When I got to the hospital with Harry I was so upset that they gave me the number for Changing Faces.
“They told me I should turn and walk away from negative comments or smile and explain what has happened.
“They said I needed to show Harry there was nothing to be ashamed or angry about.”
Harry was 16 months old when he was left fighting for his life after fire engulfed the family home in
After helping to decorate a friend’s house one Friday evening in March 2000, Jayne returned home to find her street blocked off by the police.
Her husband David had been at home looking after the children – Jordan, seven, and Michael, Jayne’s children from a previous relationship, and 16-month-old Harry, her son with David.
“I still remember that terrible moment,” she says. “I jumped out of the car and heard someone say there was a fire in one of the houses, which was why the street was blocked off. I looked down the street and thought I saw smoke pouring out of the window of our house. ‘What number is the fire at?’ I pleaded to a nearby police officer. ‘Number 95,’
he replied.” Jayne screamed. It was her house.
The next few hours were a blur for Jayne, who was bundled into a police car and taken to hospital. Tragic details slowly emerged of what had caused the fire.
David had left an electric heater on in the lounge to keep the room warm for her when she got home but the family’s kitten had knocked a sofa cushion on to the heater and started the fire.
“It was a freak accident and now four members of my family were in hospital,” Jayne says. When she arrived, she was met with devastating news.
David and Michael were dead. Doctors had been unable to revive them after they inhaled massive amounts of smoke.
David and the children were already unconscious when the fire crews had arrived at the house.
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They had managed to resuscitate Harry and Jordan before taking them to hospital but it was too late for David and Michael.
Jayne says: “I felt numb when we arrived.
“Jordan and Harry were fighting for their lives on ventilators in intensive care.”
When Jayne looked through a glass window at her son Harry, what she saw was more shocking than she could have imagined. “I told them it wasn’t my son,” she recalls.
“Harry had blond hair yet this baby was jet black all over. It was
Harry but he was covered in soot from the fire. The firemen had found him under David, who had thrown himself over Harry to try to save him. Then I saw
The next few days were a whirlwind for Jayne. Doctors immediately started operating on Harry to try to save his life, while members of the family sat with her in hospital.
“They removed Harry’s burnt skin and started doing skin grafts,” explains Jayne. “I didn’t care how he looked, I just wanted him to live.
“I’d already lost David and Michael, and it didn’t start to sink in until their funeral a week later.
“To this day I can’t quite accept that Michael is dead. I just keep thinking he will be back soon.”
Harry was so badly burned he was given only a 2% chance of survival. He spent the next two months in intensive care and was in hospital for two more months after that.
“Jordan had shut her bedroom door when David shouted that the house was on fire and that she should put her teddies in the gap under the door before opening her bedroom window,” says Jayne. “The fire crew had managed to get in through
So it was relief when the young brother and sister were finally allowed home from hospital, although David and Michael’s deaths cast a long shadow over family life.
Jayne says: “We had to go and live at my mum’s house because we had lost everything in the fire. I was devastated by David’s death.
“He was thrilled when I became pregnant with Harry and his last selfless act had been trying to save our son.”
And Harry has done his late father proud...
His latest achievement is taking part in the Changing Faces poster campaign, launched last week.
“Harry is thrilled to be part of it,” says Jayne, who now has two daughters, Libby, seven, and Grace, 11 weeks, by a new partner.
“I’m devastated to have lost my husband and son but I feel lucky that Harry and Jordan survived – and I have David to thank for that.
“I have to fight on for the children I have left.”
For more information about the campaign, visit www.changingfaces.org.uk
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