A seven-year-old boy with Downs Syndrome was at risk of isolation until Newlife stepped in to help.

Living with Downs Syndrome means Alexis Pinkney-Jones, seven, has no awareness of danger and he refuses to walk anywhere outside.

To safely leave his Aylesbury home, Alexis relies on a specialist buggy, but when the buggy broke down, he and his mum Vicky were at risk of becoming isolated.

Vicky said: “Alexis would just sit on the floor and refuse to move if we tried to go outside without a buggy, even if it was just to the local shop ten-seconds away.”

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The family received an emergency loan of a specialist buggy called Cricket from Newlife The Charity for Disabled Children, who recently opened their tenth and largest fashion store selling brand-new clothing at rock bottom prices in High Wycombe’s Eden Centre.

Vicky said: “I don’t drive, so having a buggy that Alexis could safely go outside in was really important, but the buggy we received from Newlife is so much better than our old one and means we have much more freedom than we did before.”

Now the pair can easily travel to his special school Booker Park, and trip to places with uneven surfaces like farms.

The buggy also folds into relatives’ cars – unlike the old one, which was “big and bulky” and only worked well on flat surfaces, Vicky said.

She added: “You can tell it’s a specialist buggy, rather than a High Street one, which means people don’t automatically assume he’s being lazy by being in a buggy.”

The cost of living crisis “is hitting everyone hard” so getting the bargains at Newlife’s store “is going to be even more important” as winter and Christmas approach,  Newlife’s head of retail Andrew Murphy-Hayes said.

He said: “And of course, shopping at Newlife means that thousands of pounds of additional support can go towards helping the disabled or terminally children and their families – just like Alexis – who have nowhere else to turn to receive the vital equipment they need to meet their needs for everyday life.”