A SELFLESS mother described by her children as “a family hero” has been honoured at an awards ceremony.

Julie Preece, from Cefn Golau in Tredegar, was nominated for the ‘Wales’ Family Hero’ award by her daughter, Kathryn, after losing her mother and becoming a carer for her father.

Mrs Preece, a single mum, also fostered two of her other daughter’s children.

“They told me on my birthday that I had won the award,” said Mrs Preece, 46, who works as a carer for the elderly.

“My mother died on March 1 this year and I had my father come to live with me, as he had had a stroke. My eldest daughter was in a difficult relationship and so I took my grandchildren in.

“My grandson, nine, has a missing chromosome. It is too early to tell whether my granddaughter, one, will also be affected.”

The family went to the 4Children and Take a Break Magazine UK Family Heroes Awards ceremony in London to receive the accolade in November. “I was shaking, and I was the only one from Wales,” said Mrs Preece, formerly of Oakdale. “Mydaughter said I was one in a million and that what I had gone through made me a family hero. She said if she could bring up her daughter the way I had brought her up, she would be really pleased.”

Mrs Preece had to cut down her hours working as a carer, and the dining-room has been turned into a bedroom for her father, Michael, 63.

But she still does not feel like a ‘hero’, she said.

“I feel like anyone else would have done what I did,” said Mrs Preece. “I don’t feel like a hero, heroes fight wars.”