Cannock Nativity! film star Ben Wilby is a little miracle

Nov 29 2009 by Roz Laws, Sunday Mercury

HE’S the schoolboy star of the new smash hit film, Nativity!

But what audiences don’t know is that Ben Wilby is a little miracle himself as he couldn’t walk until he was three – and almost died from a rare condition.

The seven-year-old, of Cannock, Staffordshire, is lighting up cinema screens around the country with his cheeky grin in the feel-good Christmas movie.

But as a baby, plates in his skull had fused incorrectly and when he was two he underwent a nine-hour operation at Birmingham Children’s Hospital to save his life.

Doctors warned Ben’s parents that even if he survived, he might never speak or walk.

Mum Jill remembers: “When he was born he had to be resuscitated. He had problems breathing and eating but everyone told me he was fine. I kept pushing until eventually he was diagnosed with craniosynostosis.