Three years ago I realised that all of our children and grandchildren had never gone without at Christmas - even when times had been harder! However, there were still many children in of the country, including our own area around Bristol and the West Country, who would be waking up on Christmas Day to find not a single present!

Every child deserves a special present at Christmas so I decided to see if I could do something helping one or two unfortunate kids. My initial target of filling a couple of shopping bags with toys and trotting off with them to the Sally Army for distribution to their list of less fortunate children was quickly raised. The toys, knitted items, toiletries and cash to buy more toys flooded in. As the picture shows our room was covered by hundreds of presents. Amazing! An estimate of around £2,500 (retail value) had been collected and delivered.

In 2019 and 2020 the story was identical. So in three years I had been handed about £7,500 of gifts for some of the less fortunate children in our community.

I am repeating the exercise this year. My Facebook page (Mo Lewis) graphically tells the story of this great show of human kindness. I will accept toys at my Olveston home, I will collect locally. Items can also be ordered on Amazon and sent to me. The remaining avenue is JustGiving. If you donate cash to this excellent cause I will purchase suitable gifts which will join the pile and be collected by the Salvation Army on 4th December. So please, be generous and help children who deserve to have a HAPPY CHRISTMAS. Thank you for reading this story, I hope you can help me to have a fourth successive year of festive happiness.