Dancing Sophie! Angmering tot’s miraculous transformation

This time last year, cerebral palsy-sufferer Sophie Nugent, five, couldn’t even stand up on her own, but she had a dream – to be able to dance.

A mammoth £40,000-plus fund-raising drive and a trip to the USA for a pioneering operation later, she can’t just walk. She can dance.

Mum Debbie said Sophie had been attending dance classes in Bognor for about six weeks, and had also been to a few of Zumba lessons at the Esporta club on the outskirts of Angmering.

“It’s just brilliant. The first time I watched her, I cried. I watched her trying to keep up with all the other girls, but she tries so hard, she is so determined.

“She is still a bit wobbly, but now, six weeks later, she can do a whole routine, in her own way, but she keeps up. It’s amazing.”

When the Gazette first met Sophie, in January last year, she used a wheelchair, could only walk with the aid of a frame, and was in almost constant pain.

Readers took her to their hearts, and did whatever they could, from cake sales to fun runs, from sponsored walks to sky dives, to help raise the money needed to get her to America in July.

Since then, Sophie has had to endure daily, intensive physiotherapy, which she finds tough, but nothing seems to faze the plucky tot.

“The change is amazing,” said Debbie, “we can’t believe it. Before, she would also want to know that I was near her, but now I can’t keep up with her,” she said.

Sophie now needs to go back to St Louis Children’s Hospital, where she had the operation to remove spasticity in her feet, called selective dorsal rhizotomy, for follow-up treatment and so the Nugents are back on the fund-raising trail.

Despite the original money-spinning campaign bringing in more than £40,000, the private physiotherapy sessions have proved expensive, and Debbie estimates the fund needs to be replenished by about £10,000.

Last month, students at The Angmering School gave the appeal a massive kick-start by running to the top of Highdown Hill and back again, in the pouring rain, raising £3,657, and more events are in the pipeline.

These include a ladies’ night, complete with Brighton-based male strip troupe. The Dream Boys, a drag act and disco, at Durrington Working Men’s Club, on July 2. For tickets, priced at £20 each, e-mail [email protected]

For more information on getting involved in the campaign, search Help Sophie to Walk on Facebook or go to www.helpsophiewalk.co.uk