South Shields residents rally round to help six-year-old celebrate his birthday in lockdown

The St Gregory’s RC Primary School pupil – who turned six on Tuesday, April 21 – was unable to celebrate with his school friends as a result of the lockdown measures put in place last month.

Instead, his mum and dad Regan and Gary Stewart went all out to decorate the front of their Coast Road home with more than 100 balloons and birthday banners to encourage passing traffic to beep and wish him a happy birthday.

“The night before I was wondering what I could do to make it special for him,” said Regan, 27, who is training to be a paramedic.

“I bought a cake and over 100 balloons and then found an old roll of wallpaper and decided to make the banner. It took about three hours to do it all - we were blowing up balloons until 1am.”

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“Grayson was absolutely gobsmacked when he saw it in the morning, he couldn’t believe what we had done to the house.”

With the words ‘beep it’s my birthday’ hanging up outside, dozens of drivers wished him many happy returns as they passed - with one motorcyclist even stopping especially to sing Happy Birthday.

“My neighbours put it up on Facebook and everybody shared the life out of it.

“It feels like the whole of South Shields has driven past today just to wish him happy birthday.”

Grayson shares his big day with the Queen, who was also celebrating her birthday in lockdown on Tuesday, when she turned 94.

He still managed to have brilliant day with his brother Drew, three, playing in the garden, baking cakes and some of his classmates even dropped off some handmade cards.

“He had an absolutely fantastic day considering the circumstances,” said Regan.

“I want to say thank you to everyone for making the effort, I couldn’t have asked for anything more for Grayson.

“The community has really come together through all of this it’s amazing.”

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