A former soldier who bravely took on penny-pinching NHS bosses in his fight against terminal cancer has died, aged 37. Mark Bannister's wife has revealed how her husband was forced to LIE to doctors in order to get the life-prolonging treatment he had been denied due to a cruel postcode lottery. But after wasting six months of precious time trying to obtain the drug Avastin, Mark's cancer was too advanced for the medicine to have any effect. The dad-of-two succumbed to the brain tumour he had been battling for nine years at around 6am on Monday morning, with his wife Karen, 33, at his side. In tribute to her husband, who served in Northern Ireland and Bosnia during nine years in the army, grieving Karen said: "The Avastin didn't have any effect but we had to fight for six months in order to get it. "In all that time his tumour had been growing. In the end, he had to claim that he was living at another address in order to get the treatment. Who knows what would have happened if he had got the drug sooner - I truly believe it would have helped him.
An adorable red squirrel says goodbye to the summer as he shelters from the rain underneath a small blue umbrella .
DINING under the stars, this restaurant takes you back in time - inside an ancient cave .
A northern potoo shows it is a master of disguise as it perches on a tree stump and blends into the bark .
A photographer has transformed women with alopecia into stunning sirens - showing that bald is beautiful .
Raising his arms above his head and lying flat on his back, a polar bear stretches as he sprawls out across the ice .
WIDE EYED with a huge smile across her face, this little elephant is a picture of happiness .
A host of websites that are almost twenty years old are collecting a cult following thanks to their retro appeal .
Fetching a tiny carrot and a head-shaped snowball, a red squirrel builds the perfect snowman .
Some will get up close and personal with Mother Nature’s deadliest animals to get the perfect shot, posing the question, what lengths will a photographer go to for that all important picture? But in this case, the question should be what depths .
LIKE A living balloon this baitball of sardines is ready to burst when threatened by a pointy nosed sailfish .
THE TOWERING Irish cliffs of Moher stand tall over the rippling Atlantic Ocean .
A woman has revealed how she almost died after she developed sepsis from a cold .