Mario disco for brother

Redlands pupil Jai Dixon, from Greenwood Close, helped to organise the charitable event to send his five-year-old brother Liam to a camp dedicated to helping sufferers.

More than a hundred kids and parents dressed up as Italian plumbers from the 1980s video game for the disco at St Ann’s Church on Newcastle Avenue.

Mum Lyndsey Dixon, 36, said they have raised close to £700 - enough to book a four-day weekend at Horse Boy Camp in either Kettering or Stratford-upon-Avon next summer.

“For an eight-year-old boy to come up with this idea and see it through is really touching,” she said.

“He came to us and said exactly what he wanted to do. We got a DJ and there was face painting for the kids.”

“The children had a very good time.”

The disco was also held to promote awareness of autism, something Lyndsey feels strongly about.

“It upsets me, the looks we sometimes get,” she said. “We find it very hard to do things all together as a family because we have to keep an eye on him (Liam) all the time.”

“It’s heartbreaking. All the things you want to do with your family, all the hopes and dreams you have for your children are just not materialising.”

“Jai’s got a dream to speak and play with his brother.”

The camp offers autism families the chance to immerse themselves in nature and interact with horses it says helps calm neurological trauma.

It doesn’t claim to cure autism but works to help promote communication of suffering children.

Lyndsey added: “We have always said it was something we would like to do.”

“I’m not hoping for too much but I’m going with an open mind. It will be a good experience and time we can spend as a family.”