A DETERMINED dad set off on Saturday from Balloch on a mammoth drive to Africa – to raise much-needed funds for the charity that cared for his terminally ill son.

Jonathan Kelly and his brother Phil are making the journey to the Sahara Desert in a Smart Car decorated to look like a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe. 

The pair have already smashed their £10,000 target, raising more than £15,450 for Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS), which runs Robin House, where Jonathan’s son, Rafferty, was cared for in 2014 when he was diagnosed with Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy. 

He was looked after by Great Ormond Street Hospital staff before being transferred for end-of-life care to Robin House, where the family spent three weeks together before Rafferty sadly died at nine weeks old. 

Jonathan said: “At Robin House we were able to make memories that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible as a family and it has made an awful time in our lives easier than it could have been.”

The journey will take the brothers through France and Spain before travelling to Morocco and down to the western Sahara.