AS twins Sophie and Joe Duggan celebrate their second birthday with presents and a Peppa Pig party this week, their family simply appreciate the gift of life.

The tots were born so prematurely that their little lives hung in the balance but thanks to the care and treatment they received in the neonatal unit at James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, they survived.

Yesterday, exactly two years after Joe had a life-saving operation, they returned to the ward to show staff how they have made a full recovery.

Parents Nicola Gough and John Duggan, from Spennymoor, cannot put into words how grateful they are to the medics but to say thanks they have raised more than £800 for the hospital’s charity.

Miss Gough, 34, said: “We’re just extremely grateful to all the doctors and nurses, they are both absolutely fine now which is amazing really given the struggle at the beginning of their lives.”

The twins were born ten weeks premature by emergency caesarean section- Sophie weighed 3lb 5oz and Joe was just 2lb 11oz and had a collapsed lung.

At just a day old he needed surgery and the babies spent two weeks in James Cook followed by a month at the University Hospital of North Durham.

In 2015 they spent their first night together as a family in hospital, on Christmas night, so being together at their home in Burton Woods, Spennymoor, last Christmas seemed magical.

Miss Gough, a learning support assistant at St John’s School in Bishop Auckland, said: “Going back to the ward at this time is emotional, even the smells bring back those memories.

“You see other prem babies born at the same gestation and they haven’t all made the full recovery Joe and Sophie have, they are doing so well and we are just so lucky and thankful.”

Mr Duggan, a 31-year-old plumbing lecturer at TyneMet College, Miss Gough and her brother Andrew Gough ran the Great North Run in 2016 and the two men did so again this year in aid of the South Tees Hospitals Charity.

Miss Gough and her mother Karen Watson were delighted to be reunited with the consultant who performed Joe’s life-saving operation Professor Win Tin during their visit to the ward. It coincided with World Prematurity Day, a global movement to raise awareness of premature birth and the impact on families.