The battling toddler has endured spells in hospital, intensive chemotherapy and painful treatment in a bid to beat the disease which was diagnosed early in 2008.

But now his hopeful family are daring to believe that Lewis is over the worst and that, though he is still undergoing chemotherapy, he will soon be able to enjoy life to the full.

“He is walking and talking and is into everything, just like any two-year-old. He still has oral chemotherapy every day but we have seen a big improvement in him over the past couple of months,” said Lewis’s mum, Wincey. “He is three in Sept-ember and we really hope that will be a turning point for him.”

Wincey, her mum Joyce Schofield and aunt Rachel Sheridan have organised a fund-raising walk for the Candlelighters children’s charity on Saturday, July 11. More than 35 walkers will set off from the Ritz Ballroom at 12.30pm and take in a six-mile circuit of Bailiff Bridge and Hipperholme. Collectors will be out along the route and there will be a cake and bric-a-brac stall near the Town Hall.

Thanks to the Candlelighters, a charity based at St James’s Hospital in Leeds dedicated to helping children with cancer and their families, Wincey is able to take Lewis and his brother Logan, aged five, on a caravan holiday to Primrose Valley, near Filey, next month.

Lewis is among the 150 children and teenagers in Yorkshire who are referred to the specialist unit at St James’s Hospital every year. Helping families cope with the cancer diagnosis and with the many uncertainties and disruptions to family routine that the disease can involve is one of the aims of the Candlelighters charity.

“People have been so supportive,” said Joyce. “They have been brilliant at Cliffe Hill Primary School and at Field Lane and they have had a collection tin in a local shop for 18 months. It makes you realise how kind people are. Lewis is such a brave little boy even on his bad days. We can’t imagine what it must be like for him.”

Lewis was a healthy baby when he was born but at the end of 2007 he started being poorly and cysts and bruises appeared on his body. At first anaemia was suspected but then tests revealed to Lewis’s devastated family that he had leukaemia. He underwent major surgery for a perforated bowel and has endured lengthy spells in hospital.

There have been times when he has to be kept indoors to prevent him picking up an infection and at other times he has to starve for 24 hours before undergoing his three-monthly lumbar puncture procedure.

“It’s really difficult for him because he is on steroids which make him hungry. He can’t understand why he can’t have something to eat and why we won’t let him go near the fridge. When you go into hospital and go on to the children’s ward, it’s like a wake-up call to see the number of sick children there.