A 15-year-old boy is back delivering aces at the table tennis table after undergoing operations in his fight to beat cancer.

Within two weeks of surgeons removing his big toe and part of his foot, Jethro Rainford was back at Keighley Table Tennis Centre playing from a wheelchair.

But the determined Parkside School pupil, who lives in Cross Roads, was out of the chair within two months and today he can be seen at the table for three hours at a time.

Jethro noticed a lump on his big toe in September last year and doctors thought it was a benign tumour.

But when removed, it grew back and three months later was the size of half a table-tennis ball.

An MRI scan in February, at Birmingham’s Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, revealed it to be a parosteal osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, and it would mean Jethro’s toe would have to be amputated, along with part of his foot.

His mum, Shirley, a midwife, said: “After that diagnosis, the drive back through the snow, from Birmingham to Keighley, was a drive from hell.

“But the tumour had been spotted early, which meant it could be dealt with by surgery alone and within two weeks of his operation, Jethro was back playing from his wheelchair.”

The table tennis centre, which opened in October last year in Keighley Business Centre, South Street, has a lift that enables easy access and also a table tennis robot — a machine which fires balls which can be adjusted to enable Jethro to play without having to move too much.

He had returned to school full-time in April, refusing crutches. And though doctors said he would have a significant limp and never be able to run again, Jethro is back to full fitness, sometimes playing table tennis for three hours on the trot. His mum sees the table tennis centre as a key factor in Jethro’s recovery. “It was the fantastic support of his coaches and friends there that helped Jethro carry on and prove the doctors wrong,” she said.