WHEN 20-year-old Jamie Bridges sets off on the 26.2-mile London Marathon in April he will have more than just his training to spur him on.

The date of the event – April 25 – is also the anniversary of his baby daughter’s death.

Mr Bridges, of Maltings Way, Bury St Edmunds, said he will be thinking of his daughter Ruby May Wheeler Bridges as he runs through the streets of the capital.

Ruby May was born at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital premature at just 25 weeks, weighing just over 1lb.

She was at the Norfolk and Norwich for about five months before she was transferred to the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury. However, while she was there she caught a virus and was moved to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where she died in the arms of her mother, Amy Wheeler, two weeks later.

Mr Bridges aims to raise �2,000 for the premature baby charity Tommy’s by taking part in the marathon.

A chef in Ingham, Mr Bridges said: “She was a normal little baby – she was laughing and smiling and had a proper little personality.”

Asked whether he would find it doubly difficult running on the anniversary of his baby girl’s death, Mr Bridges said: “I figure it would actually spur me on even more. It is all going to a good cause.”

Mr Bridges is now in training and is regularly chalking up seven-mile jogs.

He has his eyes set on a time of three hours and 30 minutes. “My Dad (Terry Bridges) ran it in two-and-three-quarter hours. He was a runner. Now there’s no way I could do that sort of time. But I’m hoping I might be able to do it in three-and-half hours,” he said.

To support Mr Bridges please go to www.tommys.org.rubymaywheelerbridges.