MOST babies spend their first birthday playing with wrapping paper, but for little Rory Bartram and his parents it was about giving something back.

Villagers from Chiseldon and Wroughton flooded to an Easter fair in aid of charities that help children like Rory, who was born with a heart defect that required open heart surgery when he was just nine days old.

Mum Allyson, 36, and dad Tom, 38, arranged the special celebration on Saturday, just days after Rory’s first birthday, to raise money for Wessex Heartbeat and the British Heart Foundation.

Tom, of Normandy Road, in Wroughton, said: “As parents we feel lucky to be given a chance for him to be around.

“I spoke to someone in the shop when I was handing out flyers and their son died of a heart condition after just a few months in the 1960s because they did not have the technology.

“We are very lucky and I’m so chuffed so many people turned up.”

Rory’s heart condition, called transposition of the great arteries, was detected during pregnancy at the 20-week scan by a sonographer at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon.

The main arteries leading to and from Rory’s heart were connected the wrong way round so that unoxygenated blood would be circulated around his body.

Rory’s development was closely monitored throughout the pregnancy and plans were made to have him delivered at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital where a team of cardiologists were on standby.

Shortly after Rory was born by caesarean section on March 29, surgeons conducted a balloon septostomy to ensure the hole between the two chambers of his heart did not close and allow the blood between the two chambers mixed freely, so that oxygenated blood could be circulated around his body.

He spent a few days in intensive care before being moved to the children’s ward when his condition was stabilised. At eight days old, Rory was transferred to Southampton General Hospital to its specialist children’s cardiac unit where the surgical team conducted open heart surgery to correct the ‘plumbing’ to Rory’s heart. He spent a further five days in intensive care before eventually being transferred back to the GWH.

Allyson said: “Thanks to all the superb work of these three hospitals, he has grown into a robust and healthy little boy who you would never imagine had such a rocky start to life.”

“While in Southampton, we received free accommodation in a house provided by the charity Wessex Heartbeat and we want to raise money to ensure it can continue to provide support.

“We also wanted to raise money to support the fabulous work of the British Heart Foundation.

“It was so good to see so many people come along. I aimed to raise about £1,000 through the year but we might have exceeded that.”