Tyneside Lego maestro Steve Mayes - the man behind Brick This - took a break from putting together jaw-dropping recreations of North East landmarks to create an incredible model of a radiotherapy machine as part of an innovative plan to put poorly children at ease.
The idea came from paediatric radiotherapy nurse specialist Beth Cockburn, 29, who thought a Lego radiotherapy machine could help young cancer patients at the Freeman relax ahead of their treatment. With the help of Newcastle Hospitals Charity, Steve from Brick This was more than happy to help.
Beth told ChronicleLive: "This is to support children to learn and prepare for their radiotherapy treatment. The aim is to help them to have their treatment awake.
"If we show them using this how they are going to be treated then they will hopefully be more comfortable. It will help them understand what's going to happen to them. It shows how they are going to be lying and how the machine is going to move. It's just another way I can support these children."
The nurse added that she couldn't have asked for more than what Steve has delivered - a moving scale model, in Lego, of a complex LINAC (Linear Accelarator) radiotherapy machine. "It's 100% what I wanted, every element is what we asked for," Beth said.
Steve who lives in North Shields and now runs Brick This full time, including running after-school sessions, worked as an architectural photographer for many years, before moving completely to Lego modelling around six years ago. He's created replicas of St James' Park and the Centre for Life, among other North East landmarks, while he has previously put together a model of the Maggie's Centre at the Freeman, which is just a few minutes from the children's cancer unit.
He said: "This is the first model I've done with this kind of use. The difference was building it to be used. I built it first then took it apart and glued it and built it again. With this, the aim wasn't necessarily to make it exact. They wanted it to look as close as possible to reality, but I could be a bit more flexible.
"One of the reasons I got back into Lego is that I find it very mindful.
"Lego can be wonderful for certain conditions - it's therapeutic if used in the right way. So I do really like that this will make someone far more relaxed and improve their hospital time. Lots of my stuff is just for display, but this has a really wonderful bit extra. If you'd told me I'd do this ten years ago I would have laughed you out of the room."
READ NEXT:
