A man has been renovating a historic Welsh church with his wife while fighting cancer for the last two years. James Merritt now fears he may lose his family's dream home after being told his best option for treatment may be privately-funded care.
The 50-year-old, who lost his 20-year-old daughter, Jess, to cancer in 2018, had thrown all their energy into the project in the hope it would be a new start for them. He and wife Clair are originally from Birmingham but moved to the Bridgend area after losing Jess to Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in 2018. Life had been difficult for Jess for a long time as she had been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis when she was just eight months old.
Needing a change in their lives, the couple and their other two grown up children, Abigail and Thomas, became determined to travel to Australia in 2020. They were so keen for some new beginnings that they were even prepared to sell their original house in Birmingham and take the trip around Australia in a rented campervan.
