Help - it's not rain!

Similar happened here and water was dripping into our hallway. It turned out to be the valve in the shower control that had failed and water had been running down the back of the tiles. Glad you got it sorted, GA.

Minimoon I had a similar instance a few years back when I decided to have my small bathroom redecorated just re tiling, some boxing in and painting, My tradesman found the floor didn’t feel right took the floorboards up and almost went straight through as the floor and ceiling collapsed underneath him I had apparently had a small leak for maybe years and he said he couldn’t imagine how Id never gone through when sitting on the loo anyway my few hundred pound tiling job turned into a £2000 + new ceiling/floor job
It seems a common problem my youngest daughter had a big hole in the ceiling when her shower sprung a leek and starting dripping through to their living room a couple of years back
Glad you got sorted you are so lucky to have a DIY man on hand big ?to him

This happened to us - the en-suite shower is above the downstairs toilet and water used to leak down the cavity and drip through the light switch It was due to the tiles in there never fitting properly round the shower tray which we could never seal. In the end we had the whole shower replaced and wall boarded and it's been fine since.

Glad you found the problem - some years ago our next door neighbours arrived home from work to find the ceiling had come down! A radiator had been slowly leaking which they'd not noticed. It took months for it all to be dried out and all put right again.

Fortunately the water has now stopped leaking and I can go to bed without fear of the ceiling falling down! Phew! It was a really horrid feeling - just having to watch and wait with no idea how bad the damage would be.

I'm glad to report that The Wonderful Man is an amazingly good DIYer and has now dismantled the shower. He says the problem came about because the unit is very old and so it will need replacing.

I've been thinking the sitting room maybe needed re-decorating for quite some time, but I suppose the great water stain and crack in the ceiling might force the issue!

The an-suite shower spring a leak in our previous house. We knew nothing about it, until the tiles in the bathroom below bulges and started coming away from the wall behind the bath.
The plumber had to take up the floorboards in the bedroom to find the leak. A joint had come undone!
I hope your leak is easier to fix. It must be nice to have a handy man around the house, Mr. MM is hopeless at anything more than banging in a nail.

I presume he knows what he's doing - but have you turned the stop-cock off?
Do you have a tank in the attic?

ps as you can tell, I am not a plumber but I have picked up one or two terms from DH.

I hope you get it sorted and that the ceiling stays in place.
Our shower leaked when we first moved in here, water was pouring out of the light fitting in the kitchen. The ceiling was OK, didn't come down but I was worried about the electrics.