MILK ON THE MOVE

It's not just donated blood that criss-crosses the country on the back of motorbikes, but emergency breast milk brought direct from generous mums to the most vulnerable babies

- By Jane Warren

JUST after 6am on a sleepy Saturday morning in Worthing, West Sussex, the only sound to be heard is the steady hum of Roy Stagg’s motorbike.

Thirty-five miles away in Eastbourne, premature triplets born overnight are clinging to life. And in the secure, temperature-controlled box on the back of his bike, Roy is carrying more than just a delivery — he’s a courier for the precious gift of breast milk, a lifeline for fragile newborns fighting to survive.

Every journey holds meaning when you're riding for a cause. But for this softly spoken volunteer, who leads the milk donor programme in Sussex, every mile he travels carries the memory of a little girl he never got to see grow up — his granddaughter, Maggie Mae, who died at just 19 days old in 2011.

“I ride in her name,” Roy, 71, says gently, his voice steady but heavy with feeling, “She’s with me on every trip.”

A former Sussex Police officer with a lifetime of biking behind him, including on the road policing unit, Roy never imagined his retirement would take this shape. But then, no grandparent expects to lose a grandchild.

Maggie Mae was born prematurely at 24 weeks. She spent her short life in the neonatal intensive care unit at St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey.

“She was very poorly, and required a number of transfusions. She battled for 19 days, but in the end her underdeveloped lungs and an infection took her from her mum and dad, and from the rest of us,” he explains.

In those heartbreaking weeks, Roy noticed “gallant knights” constantly arriving at St Peters — men on motorcycles, arriving at all hours. “I was too preoccupied at the time to appreciate the job they were doing, and the contribution they made in Maggie’s care.”

Months later, still processing his family’s heartbreaking loss, he was astonished to discover that the riders behind those life-saving deliveries were all volunteers.