RACHAEL Bell can feel the living spirit of Matthew, her three-year-old son who died last October after contracting the E-coli bug. It is that presence of her happy, active boy (she's sure she once felt him cuddling her) that helps her find a way through each day in the Torrisholme home she shares with Tom, her two-year-old. That and working for a charity which aims to highlight the spread of the E-Coli bacteria so that no other parent need ever endure the pain she feels.

"I don't want you to do the 'grieving mum' bit," explains Rachael, "I'm all right, I'm coping. I just want other parents to know that it could happen. I still have two boys, not just Tom. I still have Matthew, I always will."

One of the reasons why Rachael is so keen to work to spread the message that E-Coli can kill to other parents is that she believes local doctors could have done more to spot the signs of her son's illness.

Like most mothers she was sensitive about Matthew's illnesses and immediately noticed when he was becoming seriously ill.

At first though it seemed that he a run of the mill case of diarrhoea but then her usually plucky, uncomplaining boy took a turn for the worse. Then she noticed blood in his stools. Rachael called the doctor out at 3am one Tuesday morning and the young medic told her he would need tests and "if he gets any worse you should phone me."

That was the first stage of a battle by Rachael to try and force the doctors take the case as seriously as she thought it merited. "They just kept telling me to make sure he was taking fluids," she remembers.

It took 10 days before Matthew was given a blood test and taken to the specialist Children's Hospital, Alder Hey in Liverpool.

Really though most doctors would fail to recognise the symptoms without tests. E-Coli 0157 is a growing problem but still rare. Most GPs in the area have never dealt with a case.

Dr David Telford is a pathologist at Lancaster Infirmary, the department which first detected Matthew's E-Coli one of a number of cases around Morecambe last autumn, including Tom, Rachael's other son.

"It is increasing, we're finding that it is in the food chain more," said Dr Telford, "But it can't be diagnosed without tests and most of our 80-odd GPs have never come across it. The doctors are more sensitive to it now than before. Three years ago we might have come across one case every two years. Now it's once or twice a year - still rare. Humans pick it up from food, most likely from red meat."

Meanwhile Rachael still nurtures the memory of her darling son.

"The funeral seems ages and ages ago now," she admits, "but it seems just yesterday that he was here."

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