SHOREHAM ONE YEAR ON: My boy is a light that came out of something so awful
CRADLED in the arms of his mother, 12-week-old Jaxson Brown sleeps soundly.
It will be years before Georgina Brown can explain to her son why he will never get the chance to meet his father Daniele Polito.
But as a single tear rolls down her cheek, she smiles and says: “It’s like Daniele has been reborn.”
Jaxson’s father was one of the 11 men who lost their lives in the Shoreham Air Show disaster, a year ago to the day tomorrow.
But Daniele, 23, died not knowing his girlfriend was even pregnant.
He was in a car travelling along the busy A27 in West Sussex, close to the airfield, when a 1955 Hunter Hawker plane crashed down.
The aircraft, piloted by Andy Hill, 52, ploughed into the carriageway during a loop-the-loop stunt, hit several vehicles and exploded in a fireball. As well as the dead, 16 people were badly injured.
Georgina, 17, says: “Jaxson was born on May 22, nine months to the day after his dad died.
“It was like a small light coming out of something so awful.
“It has been as though Daniele was growing again inside of me that whole time.”
Daniele met Georgina after striking up a friendship with her family. A bond developed over six years and they became closer when he split from the mother of his first son Georgio, four.
LOVE
Georgina, of Worthing, explains: “I was younger, but we grew up together. In the two years before he died he came round a lot more to see mum and his friends nearby.
“He and my stepdad, Neil, would do little jobs together. They were close. We started messaging each other, and before long we started to see things in a different light.
“He was helping us decorate the house – we’re still working on it now, because he hasn’t been around to help us any more. We talked about everything. He was my best friend. He was my first true love.”
Georgina was almost 16 when their relationship began to blossom. So they waited until July 31 last year before taking their love to the next level. Daniele had first sought the blessing of Georgina’s mother Rebecca, 42.
But the romance would be shortlived, as Daniele was cruelly taken away just three weeks later.
On that fateful day he had been working with fellow labourer Matt Jones.
They set off for home in Matt’s car during the early afternoon, while Georgina looked forward to a date.
Dinner and a film was on the cards, but Daniele never turned up.
Georgina says: “He texted me and said, ‘I’m on my way’. But I didn’t get any messages after that. I just thought he wasn’t coming to see me, and had decided to do something else. “I got annoyed, but there was nothing I could do other than sit and wait.” At that point she was unaware the car Daniele and Matt were travelling in had been caught up in the horror crash. Georgina adds: “Eventually I rang one of his friends to ask what was going on. He came round and we were looking through Facebook – news about the disaster had started to spread. There were loads of posts saying ‘RIP Daniele’.
“We thought people were jumping the gun, and maybe he was being held somewhere and couldn’t contact us. It didn’t feel real.
“I just thought he had to be OK. We decided to wait until the morning and hope for the best.
“I couldn’t sleep, and the next morning I saw his death had been confirmed on the TV news.
“I collapsed on the landing floor, just crying. After that I locked myself away for two weeks.”
An unusual feeling washed over Georgina during that time. Deep in her stomach she felt something was different. She says: “In the back of my mind I just felt like I must be pregnant. I decided to take a test, to see if my suspicions were right.
“I took two over the course of a week, and both came back positive. When the first result came back, I just sat there and stared at it.”
TRAUMA
Georgina continues: “I always thought I’d have a baby in my late 20s, at the earliest. But because of the circumstances, it was totally different. I’d just lost Daniele, I didn’t want to lose my baby too.”
At first she kept the news to herself and only her mum knew