LIKE many children their age, two boys excitedly run around the garden proudly showing off the sunflowers.

Brothers Marley Nicholls, six, and his brother George, four, from Bettws in Newport share a close bond, but Marley is battling the rare blood condition aplastic anaemia which means it’s a race against time to find a matching bone marrow donor for a transplant.

“It was totally out of the blue,” his mum Shaney Truman said about the diagnosis.

“I genuinely wouldn’t wish this on anyone. With kids it’s not fair and it is rubbish that this has to be part of his childhood, but we just get on with it.

“It is heartbreaking, but he’s doing really well at the moment.”

Marley’s condition means he needs a bone marrow transplant and without it doctors said he could die in the next two or three years.

Now a desperate plea for more people to become organ donors has been made after a family discovered no match has yet been found to save their young son's life.

Hundreds of people signed up as bone marrow donors this month for six-year-old Marley Nicholls, who is battling the rare blood condition aplastic anaemia.

Without a transplant, doctors have said he could die in the next few years.

Tragically, the family have now discovered that there is currently no-one on the worldwide register who is currently a match for Marley.

Dad Joe Nicholls said the family's "world fell apart" when he they heard the news.

"Marley has caught an infection and is in hospital," he said.

"We then heard from the consultant that no match has been found for Marley.

"There are hundreds of thousands of people on the donor register and we were devastated to know not one was a match."

He added: "Our world fell apart when he told us that."

Mr Nicholls said they are remaining positive that a match can be found.

"We have to remain strong for Marley," he said.

"There is someone out there and we need to find that person.

"We are not giving up."

The family are now calling for more people to sign up to the donor register, in a desperate bit to find Marley a match.

He said: "It is straight forward to do.

"We are pleading for more people to sign up. We are also encouraging people from around the world to sign up now.

"We will be asking people in person and on social media to please help Marley."

“Time is of the essence and finding a donor is the only thing that is going to give him a future,” Shaney added.

“People asked about raising money but we said that we don’t want people’s money, we want people’s time.

“Time is precious and we want people to register as bone marrow donors.”

The campaign #MarrowforMarley has meant that 3,000 people have signed up to become donors with Anthony Nolan, a charity which matches people willing to donate their blood stem cells or bone marrow to people who need lifesaving transplants, and has also led to a huge increase in blood donations.

“I feel like it’s our job as parents to do everything we possibly can,” Ms Truman said.

“Even if this doesn’t benefit Marley I feel I wouldn’t be doing my job as a mum if I wasn’t doing everything I could.”

Special events have been taking place in the Newport area where people will be tested by taking a mouth swab. Even if the people tested are not a bone marrow match for Marley they will be put on a national register and could be a match for someone else.

“This isn’t just for us,” Joe Nicholls said.

“We want to help other people too, not just Marley, because there are so many people going through what we are going through. We are doing it for them too”

Find out more about the Marrow for Marley campaign at facebook.com/marrowformarley

For more information on the process of becoming a donor, visit here