EastEnders actor James Bye, who competed on Strictly Come Dancing in 2022 with Amy Dowden, was terrified when his baby boy’s welfare took a dramatic turn for the worse. A tumble from a trampoline had left him with a nasty knock to the head – and just hours later, he started projectile vomiting in the middle of the night.

Terrified that one-year-old Rufus could be showing delayed signs of a brain injury and concussion, his mum Victoria called emergency services – and feared the worst. She was astonished when the doctor diagnosed gastroenteritis – a common condition which causes diarrheoa and vomiting – after their panicked dash to A&E but was forced to “eat her words” as he proceeded to vomit in quantities she’d “never seen before”. She took to Instagram to share the family’s woes, explaining: “Now, it’s fair to say I was a tad sceptical about this diagnosis. Especially with her stark warning at how contagious it was.

“Needless to say, I then ate my words. Over the next few days there has been a vom-fest the likes of which I’ve never seen before,” she groaned.

“I’m talking up the walls, in the door frame, all over the carpet & bum squits galore.”

The family pet seemed to share in the misery of the moment, with Victoria shuddering: “Our blind dog brought his own level of incontinence & then stood in the corner headbutting the wall.”

Victoria, who has four sons with James, then discovered just how right the doctor was about gastroenteritis being contagious, as she started to get violently ill herself.

She cringed: “I haven’t managed to keep more than a cuppa down in days.”

Victoria, who runs an Instagram page called @lifewiththebyes, where she regularly shares family updates with 130,000 followers, received a torrent of support from fans and more than 15,000 likes on the post.

Elsewhere, James, who was killed off on EastEnders, was virtually unrecognisable in recent photos which saw him channel Jane Austen hero Mr Darcy in Death Comes To Pemberley.

With sideburns, swept back hair and a striking new wardrobe, he was a million miles from his EastEnders character, market trader Martin Fowler – but Strictly had already given him experience in taking on new and different roles.

He declared: “After a decade of gritty storylines it’s going to be quite a switch to put on period clothes as one of literature’s romantic leading men… I can’t wait for this new chapter to begin.”