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Courageous Kurt Hatfield has fought life-threatening conditions his whole life.

But the former winner of the Community Awards Child of Courage award, run through our sister paper, the Cambridge Evening News, refuses to let them get on top of him.

A bone marrow transplant at Great Ormond Street Hospital last year was thought to have helped beat a rare blood disorder.

But the operation has left the brave 15-year-old, of Rowell close, in Haverhill, fighting yet another battle.

Kurt's old bone marrow is reacting badly to the newly transplanted tissue.

He has just been back to Great Ormond Street to have further treatment, nine months after the original operation.

Graham, his father, said: "It's taken a bit of time to come on, which is unusual, so he is not 100 per cent at the moment, but it's his spirit that keeps him going.

"He had been told everything was going to be all right, so when he was told there was a problem it's got to get you down a bit."

Kurt has two ways of getting through the tough times, and there have been a few. Long periods of his life have been spent in hospital, including a nine-month stay in 2003, and he has nearly died more times than his family can remember.

Graham said: "You cant't keep him out of the kitchen. He wants to be a chef and he is costing us a fortune in flour."

And Kurt is never far from his beloved off-road motorbike, which he received from the Make a Wish Foundation.

Kurt also won a VIP trip to the British Grand Prix after winning Child of Courage category in the Evening News Community Awards 2004.

He and his dad are off to Donnington Park in Leicestershire again this year - as long a Kurt is well enough.

Nominations for this year's Most Courageous Child award are still being accepted and a nomination form can be found at www.cambridge-news.co.uk/communityawards