Kettering family's 'beautiful' DIY SOS Big Build on telly tonight

Fans of BBC One’s DIY SOS Big Build will get a look tonight (May 10) at the transformation of a Kettering family home made possible by kind-hearted local volunteers.

Kettering midwife Lindsey McAuley and her family will feature on the programme which airs at at 8pm, showing her home being changed from being uninhabitable to ‘beautiful’.

Lindsey and her four children were left devastated when dad Shaun McAuley fell ill and died of a rare and aggressive cancer before he could renovate their dream home in Pine Road.

Led by presenter Nick Knowles, a team of ‘purple shirts’ with plans drawn up by designer Gabrielle Blackman, hundreds of local trade workers, volunteers and some of Shaun’s old army buddies will be seen stepping in to finish the job Shaun had started.

Lindsey, who had two children from a previous marriage, married ex-Royal Engineer Shaun in 2019. The newlyweds then had two boys. In the summer of 2021, they began to extend their house, with a local builder working with them to put in the foundations, walls and roof, and to get the extension up to first fix. The plan was for Shaun to finish the build himself.

Several months after starting the build, ‘dream dad’ Shaun fell ill. Initially, he had an operation on his kidneys and bowel, but within months he was struck down by an aggressive cancer and he tragically died in November 2021.

Lindsey and her four children were devastated, and their grief was compounded by not having a space for them all to be a family together.

Volunteers who worked tirelessly to transform a shell of a house into a 'beautiful' family home were thanked by the family in a tearful 'big reveal'.

Tonight at 8pm on BBC One viewers will see people gathered in the street to see widow Lindsey and her four children as they emerge from a tour of their 'amazing' home.

After a first glimpse of their home, the family received rapturous applause from those who had worked on the project - led by presenter Nick Knowles.

Mum Lindsey McAuley said: "Thank you. It's absolutely beautiful and amazing. A few months ago life was very difficult. We lost our special person. If he was here today he would want to thank you so much. Shaun would have been blown away by it. "

In the crowd was Lindsey's friend Millie Dainty, who had contacted the DIY SOS team and convinced them that the family needed their help.

Millie said: "It's magical. I promised Shaun I would get it done. It's going to be somewhere they can relax."

Presenter Nick Knowles said: "We want to keep talking about Shaun. This lot are family for life. It's fair to say you have a bigger family. Thank you, you guys have been amazing."

Next week, a DIY SOS Big Build programme featuring the Hutchison family from Corby will be shown on May 17 at 8pm on BBC One.