STORY: Staff in NI bakery brought to tears by father’s kindness

A father from Co Down in Northern Ireland whose daughter passed away at eight days old touched hearts in Windsor Home Bakery when he paid for another family’s birthday cake to mark what would have been his child’s first birthday.

The kind gesture came to light when the family who had ordered the Peppa Pig cake for a one-year-old girl from the Windsor Home Bakery in Banbridge arrived to pay for it only to find someone had beaten them to it.

In a Facebook post, the girl’s aunt said: “When I went to pay for it I was informed by the staff that an absolute gent of a man had came [sic] in earlier that morning and asked to pay money towards it due to it being his daughter’s first birthday that had sadly passed away at eight days old.”

The father was Gareth Bronte, whose daughter Hannah Stella Bronte was born prematurely on 10 September, 2018 weighing two pounds, five and half ounces.

He said: “Those eight days with Hannah filled me with such joy. They’ll stay with me forever. But it doesn’t take away the pain of not seeing her growing up.”

Gareth, who lives on the outskirts of Banbridge, went to the bakery to mark would have been Hannah’s first birthday.