Wish stories

Seven-year-old Felix is living with a rare blood disorder and may need a bone marrow transplant in future to stay healthy. He struggles to communicate and express himself as he's on the autistic spectrum. Felix is fascinated with pylons, and his family turned to us with an incredibly imaginative wish: to help him transform into a pylon-powered superhero called Electroman, have the day filmed and made into a comic strip! His wish was granted on 18th August 2016.

When Felix turned to us, he wished to b transformed into Electroman!

Felix’s wish was a tall order! Time was of the essence because the plan was for the wish to coincide with Felix’s birthday so there were only six weeks to get everything arranged!

The adventure involved Electroman saving the day for a plane full of holidaymakers who needed his superpowers to get the aircraft’s engines going again. It involved a helicopter, a supercar, a power company, an airport, a passenger plane, specific costumes and boots, a pylon-shaped birthday cake as well as a limousine, boiler suits, a film crew, and editing.

Luckily, Felix’s dad Steven had already got the ball rolling by contacting National Grid, which owns the country’s power lines, who said they were happy to fly Felix over some pylons and allow him to control their on-board camera.

Wishgranting Team Leader Nicola then put together a whole team of amazing #WishMakers to work together to create a very special day.

Staff at London Luton Airport, Harrods Aviation, easyJet, A1 Limousines, FDR promotions, Absolute Print, a seamstress, film team, photographer and many more volunteers all contributed – as well as Felix’s nine-year-old sister, Yael, who designed his costume, as well as one for herself as his sidekick Sparkgirl!

National Grid Pilot, Liam Hughes, flew the helicopter, while manager, John Rigby gave a running commentary to a fascinated Felix, who just loves the geometric lines and shapes of pylons!

The airline easyJet arranged for Felix to go on board one of their planes at London Luton Airport. They put forward pilot Captain Chris Foster, whose job also involves taking Fear of Flying sessions for passengers, as the perfect person to look after Felix in the cockpit on the day of his wish.

Another piece of the jigsaw came together when Steven's friend John said he would loan him a McLaren SLR supercar for the day, and another one of Steven's connections created Electroman and Sparkgirl logos to go on their pint-sized costumes.

But now the family needed Nicola’s expertise to organise the big day and she had her work cut out with:  

• Working with Steven on the storyline for Electroman's film
• Sourcing orange superhero boots that lit up – as well as red leggings, shorts and t-shirts!
• Arranging transport to get Felix and his family to the helicopter base and the airport
• Organising parking for the supercar and finding somewhere at London Luton Airport for the National Grid helicopter to land – a big thank you to Harrods Aviation who lent us their facilities

• Ensuring the family and film crew had up-to-date passports to go airside
• Getting volunteers to help stitch superhero capes to costumes, bake a pylon cake for Felix's big day and help take photos
• Being at Luton Airport on the day to make sure everything went smoothly!

On the day, the wish went smoothly and Felix was in his element! Now he and his family, including his grandmother who was there too, have the film to watch and the comic strip to read whenever they like to take them back to that magical day!

Afterwards, Steven said: “The wish was amazing. It was wonderful to see the huge smile on his face - to see him this excited has been such a pleasure.”

Nicola said: "It was thanks to Steven’s hard work and determination in getting the backbone of his son’s wish organised that we were in a position to bring the rest of it to life in such a short timescale.”

Captain Chris Foster from easyJet said: “easyJet is delighted to have played a part in making Felix's – or Electroman's - wish a reality and it was a real pleasure to have him and his sister onboard. We hope they had as much fun as we did!”