Left with his dead mummy for two days

Linda macdonald, 58, reveals the heartbreak after her little grandson was found at home saying, ‘I can’t wake mummy’

- Paige Haydon & Lousie Baty

Wrapping my arms around my daughter, I held her as she wheezed and coughed. Lydia, three, was gasping for air so hard, her whole body was shaking. This wasn’t a one-off. It was 1990 and, after a year of struggling, she’d just been diagnosed with chronic asthma.

The doctors had shown my husband Ron and me how to use inhalers and nebulisers to help Lydia during her attacks. Finally, we felt her begin to calm and her breathing become more regular but it didn’t stop these attacks terrifying us. and as the years passed, they became more frequent and severe.

By her teens, Lydia was being hospitalised five times a year and was a regular patient at the asthma clinic. During the summer of 2001, when she was 14, Lydia suffered an attack so severe, her lips turned blue. she was rushed to a&E and was kept on oxygen for a week.

But when she came home and went back to school, she was her usual bubbly self. she hated people feeling sorry for her. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she would always say.

Of course, that didn’t stop Ron and me constantly fearing the worst. Believe me, nothing is more terrifying than watching your own child gasping for breath, their eyes filled with fear. we knew that asthma could kill – and that knowledge was a huge burden to carry. But Lydia was sensible about her condition and always carried an inhaler. we also taught her to be independent – and so after leaving school at 16, she trained as a hairdresser.

In spring 2011, when she was 24, she had exciting news. ‘I’ve met someone,’ she smiled,telling us about her new boyfriend Bobby martin, also 24. she and Bobby quickly became inseparable and soon they moved in together. we missed her and I worried about how she would cope away from me – especially with her asthma – but she was only a drive away and we still saw her all the time.