A former Maidstone Grammar School pupil is appearing on cinema screens across the country.

Actor Tom Riley is the star of a new independent movie called Starfish, which tells the moving story of real-life sepsis sufferer Tom Ray.

Mr Ray’s life changed unrecognisably in 1999 when at 38 he suddenly contracted sepsis and was seriously ill within hours.

He ended up having to have both legs and arms amputated and part of his face removed.

His wife, Nicola Ray, who was nine months pregnant when he was diagnosed, found herself giving birth in hospital while her husband lay in a coma in another ward.

It sound like a depressing movie, but the film concentrates on the uplifting story of Mr Ray’s courage in facing such horrors and the incredibly supportive relationship with his wife, played in the movie by Downton Abbey actress Joanne Froggatt, who also produced the film.

Mr and Mrs Ray attended the film’s London premiere with the two actors.

Tom Riley, 35, was brought up in Loose, attending Loose Junior School, before going to MGS and on to Birmingham University where he took a first class degree in English and drama. He then trained for three years at with LAMDA.

His credits already include the movies A Few Days In September, I Want Candy and Kill Your Friends, while he has appeared on our small screens in Casualty, Lewis, Poirot, Bedlam and Dr Who.

His proud mother, Jane Stymest, who lives in Anglesea Avenue, Loose, said: “I hope many people go to see the film. Not because my son is in it, but because there needs to be far more awareness of sepsis and its devastating effects.”

Sepsis, blood poisoning, is when the blood’s immune system goes into over-drive following an injury, and begins destroying the victim’s own body. It kills 44,000 people a year in the UK.

If caught early enough, it can be cured quite simply with antibiotics.

*Starfish is showing at The Kino in Rye on Monday, at Cineworld in Ashford on Wednesday, and will also be showing at the Kino in Hawkhurst, from Monday, November 21, to Thursday, November 24.