Matthew Whittaker is a healthy, 41-year-old supply teacher from Lancashire. As a schoolboy, he underwent then-experimental transplant surgery – and today he is Britain’s longest-surviving child recipient of a donor liver. And perhaps the most unusual twist of all is that TV presenter Esther Rantzen played a pivotal role in saving his life.

Just days after finding out she was pregnant, Diane Mullineux was given the devastating news that she had developed cervical cancer. She was told that she had to abort the baby and have a procedure that would remove any tumors. Instead, she decided to hold on and had the surgery while her baby was still in the womb. Now her daughter Nancie has been successfully born and her cancer is gone.

Nicole Murphy, from Worcestershire, died in hospital on December 27 last year after her father found her unresponsive in bed. An inquest concluded that she died of unknown natural causes. It is thought her chickenpox might have triggered a fit.

Lucia Sansbury, from Cornwall, was so small when she was born that medics had to improvise by placing her in clear plastic sandwich bag to keep her warm. She also needed emergency surgery to repair her bowel, and laser surgery to save her eyesight. Her mother Emma said: 'Lucia is lovely and when your baby has had to fight just to survive, you are just glad you have them regardless of what problems may come.'

EXCLUSIVE: Tiffany Crawford, 45, from Scarborough, lived with a constantly bloated stomach and persistent pain down her right side, which left her feeling miserable. She said: 'Whenever I ate anything like bread, my symptoms would flare up. I regularly found myself doubled over with pain for three to four days whenever I ate white bread and had to resort to cutting it out completely.' The pain and bloating meant her relationship with her husband Andrew, 44, also suffered. She said: 'Between the stomach ache and the fact it felt like a balloon and looked awful, I just didn't feel sexy or have any enthusiasm in the bedroom.'

Sophie Anderson, now 13, told ITV's Daybreak she believes she used food as a coping mechanism to deal with the pressures of life. She spent several months being nursed back to health and now speaks to classrooms of young girls to try and raise their self esteem. She said: 'I tell them it's OK to love yourself. It's a girl's natural instinct if she gets a compliment, say about her hair looking nice, to say "no it doesn't". 'I'm trying to teach girls to think "yes, I am pretty, I am confident".'

Hannah Brown, from Hatfield, South Yorkshire, was diagnosed last February. She was told last month that the cancer has spread to her spine and is now incurable. Since her diagnosis, family and friends say she has continued to be in high spirits - even sitting two GCSE exams - both of which she passed - in hospital the day after brain surgery.

Gerald Charles, 53, from Hereford, dropped from 18.5st (left) to 12st 6lbs (right) after his wife, Carol (inset), died of cancer at just 45. He decided to lose the weight because he feared his 14-year-old son, Edward, could be left without a parent.

Claire Cressey, 34, from the Scottish Borders, gave birth to 1lb 3oz Emily Grace when she was just 24 weeks pregnant. Emily (right with father, Alan) is so small and fragile her parents have not yet been able to hold her. If she had been born just one week earlier she would have been classed as a miscarriage.

In a bid to raise awareness and money for breast cancer, thousands of women have wiped their faces clean and snapped themselves without the flattery of make up. And joining the campaign, the mother of former Towie star Maria Fowler took it a step further - by baring her reconstructed breasts.

Aching bones. Failing sight. Every move exhausting. A special 'aging suit' gave Amanda Platell a shocking inight into what elderly parents like hers endure every day. The suit was recently tested by a 19-year-old rugby players who only managed to walk 100 yards in it.

Two-year-old Sophie Thomlinson from Dukinfield, Greater Manchester, was born prematurely and has a form of cerebral palsy which means she cannot use her legs. An operation on her spinal cord would enable her to take her first steps and she was referred by local doctors to the Leeds General Infirmary, part of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which specialises in the selective dorsal rhizotomy procedure. However, she was denied £25,000 funding by NHS England. Perversely, a 22-year-old aspiring glamour model was given breast enhancement surgery last year at another Leeds hospital within the same NHS trust.