'Some superheroes like to be kept anonymous' - kind-hearted builder refunds Derbyshire mum who bought soft play equipment for severely epileptic son

Calvin Watkinson, who lives in Mickley is just three years old, has autism and severe epilepsy and hasn’t spoken a word.

His parents Claire and Lloyd, who are full-time carers for their only child, wanted to create a dream bedroom for Calvin where he could play safely. But new soft play equipment costing £5,000 was beyond their reach so they were delighted when Claire found a bargain buy on eBay for £126. A builder had removed soft play equipment from a nursery in Nottingham before converting the building into a care home.

The Derbyshire Times reported on the lucky find and how Calvin’s parents had fitted the equipment into their son’s bedroom last week.

However, the family were in for another surprise when Claire received a notification from eBay about a refund. Claire said: “I was confused because I didn’t have any outstanding purchases or any reason to receive a refund. I logged onto eBay to find the refund in progress was from the builder who had sold us the soft play, he’d attached a note which read: “Please buy your lad something. All the best” .

Claire said: “Some superheroes like to be kept anonymous. It turned out that the builder had read the article in the paper and his response was that ‘it brought a tear’. I explained to the builder how incredibly grateful we were, we’d love to repay that kindness somehow, but he compassionately just said that he was really pleased to help, he didn’t want anything in return and then offered any help should we need it in the future.

“We were absolutely over the moon at the generosity of the builder, receiving the money back was one thing but that somebody else (who we’ve only been briefly acquainted with) had read our article in the paper and was moved to act on that really melted my heart. We will be forever grateful to the builder."

Lloyd and Claire thought long and hard on how to spend the refunded money as they wanted to do something memorable with it. Claire said: “We have decided to take Calvin on a special overnight break away to his favourite place in the world… Peppa Pig World near Southampton and this money will be a huge contribution towards that. We went last year and it blew Calvin’s mind – he’s obsessed!

"We’ve been able to salvage more soft play and completed Calvin’s bedroom; we moved his wardrobes into another room and replaced them with a soft play staircase and slide much to Calvin’s delight."