Boy with Tourette's writes heartwarming letter to Lewis Capaldi after Glastonbury set 'struggle'

A boy with Tourette's Syndrome wrote a heartwarming letter to Lewis Capaldi after his Glastonbury set 'struggle'.

The 26-year-old Scottish singer's Glasto performance over the weekend clearly had a major impact on 11-year-old James Craven, who has been formally diagnosed with Tourette’s.

James watched the festival set on TV with his mum, Kate, and felt an urge to write Capaldi a letter to tell him just how much of an inspiration he was.

PA

Just over the weekend, the 'Forget Me' singer called his Glastonbury set a 's***show' as crowd filled in the lyrics due to losing his voice when he took to the Pyramid Stage on Saturday (24 June) but was unable to finish his set.

After performing 'Bruises', Capaldi said he was having voice issues, telling the crowd: "I’m going to be honest everybody but I’m starting to lose my voice up here, but we’re going to keep going and we’re going to go until the end.

"I just need you all to sing with me as loud as you can if that’s okay?"

Before his final song, Capaldi told his adoring fans: "I recently took three weeks off just because I’ve been non stop the past year and I wanted to take a wee break from my head for my mental health.

"I wanted to come back and do Glastonbury because it’s obviously so incredible so I just want to thank you all for coming out.

"I was scared but you’ve really made me feel at ease so thank you very much for that.”

Capaldi added: "I feel like I’ll be taking another wee break over the next couple of weeks so you probably won’t see much of me for the rest of the year maybe even.

"But when I do come back, when I do see you, I hope you’re all still up for watching."

BBC

Kate, a 42-year-old teacher, told PA: “[James] sat there this morning while I was doing the ironing and wrote this letter without any prompting or anything like that.

"I was really proud of him because it absolutely came from his heart."

The first line of James' letter reads: "I like that you have Tourette’s and you keep going with it."

Other lines of the handwritten letter include: "Whenever I see you struggling but continue going, it brings a smile to my face," and "You are a role model to everyone with Tourette’s and it shows them that they can be successful."

She added that James is a fan of Capaldi and is even an aspiring musician himself currently learning how to play the piano.

When the crowd lovingly sang along during Capaldi's Glasto set, James was right there with them doing the same.

"He was singing along, the whole living room was singing along with him," she said.

"Also, everybody watching held their breath a little bit, I think, because James knows what having tics is like and when attention is drawn to them, it just makes them worse."

PA

James' mum also revealed that when her son was diagnosed with Tourette’s, he was 'absolutely over the moon'.

She said: "We had a little celebration."

Kate now hopes that Capaldi's emotional performance can help raise awareness for Tourette’s, adding: "I would like people to see that having a condition like Tourette’s has a massive impact on your mental health and sometimes it’s absolutely fine, but sometimes it isn’t.

"James did his SATs and suppressed his tics and afterwards, his body was just broken and he slept for 13/14 hours."

She continued: "I’d also like people to be more aware of the fact that tics are not necessarily the extreme ones and that you can be successful with the condition and it is also only one facet of who you are."