Children’s charity founder Colin Nesbitt will embark on a mammoth tour of the country tomorrow taking Christmas gifts to children at 14 hospitals between Bradford and Land’s End.

Mr Nesbitt was inspired to set up the charity Little Heroes by caring for five-year-old Reece Randle, who will be joining him on the trip.

The youngster was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia two weeks before his second birthday and Mr Nesbitt said he hoped seeing Reece doing so well now would give hope to parents of children recently diagnosed with cancer.

“Reece will just be up for it, it’ll be so much fun for him,” said Mr Nesbitt.

“I’ve just got this vision in my head. It’s two weeks before Christmas, children have just been diagnosed with cancer.

“When you hear that word all you can think about is death.

“I can just visualise Reece going in as Father Christmas giving a toy to a parent of a child with cancer.

“Reece has been through three years of treatment and he is full of life, he’s doing really well.

“My biggest hope is the parents can see there is a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope there.”

The pair will be distributing about £10,000 worth of toys over the next two weeks, including to children at Bradford Royal Infirmary, Airedale General Hospital and Leeds General Infirmary.

Trips to hospitals in Scotland and some in the North of England have been postponed until the New Year due to the weather.

Mr Nesbitt said: “You just do it and get through it. It’s been an interesting week trying to get everything sorted.”

In total the pair will have covered more than 2,000 miles and given toys to children at 22 hospitals by the time they finish.