SANTA Claus made an early appearance in Builth Wells on Friday as the town’s mayor and deputy mayor delivered Christmas treats to local children.

Mayor Gwyn Davies wanted to recreate Santa’s grotto that the town council put on for local children last Christmas and was so popular, where Santa ventured around town on a makeshift sleigh before landing it on the Groe, where presents were handed out to the kids.

But, in light of the ongoing social distancing restrictions due to coronavirus, the town council’s festive plans this year were dashed.

Undeterred, and wanting to keep the festive spirit alive, the busy elves at the town council got together and came up with another plan, which involved mayor Gwyn spending his entire £1,000 honorarium – a kind of allowance – on chocolate bars to give local schoolchildren something to smile about.

The result was Gwyn and his fellow councillors almost biting off a little bit more than they could chew – as they amassed 4,000 chocolate bars and received some funny looks dashing through shopping aisles and frantically loading trolleys like an episode of Supermarket Sweep.

“We had the grotto last year and I wanted to do something for the kids again but we couldn’t do that due to the pandemic, so I wanted to come up with another plan,” said Gwyn.

“We looked at doing the grotto again in the Strand Hall but we just couldn’t work out a way to do it safely, so I came up with a plan to get the kids a selection box. Then, Cadbury stopped making them for a period this year due to the pandemic, so we decided to make our own selection boxes.”

County Times:

Gwyn (r) pictured dropping off the treats at Builth Primary School with Builth county councillor Jeremy Pugh (l).

Gwyn and other members of the town council raided local supermarkets – including both of Builth’s Co-op stores and Tuffins – even travelling an hour away to Home Bargains in Carmarthen, in pursuit of their plan, named Operation Chocolate Drop.

“We were buying in multipacks or the buy-one-get-one-free offers and cleared the two Co-op’s and Tuffins out of chocolate,” said Gwyn.

“My wife even asked in Co-op if we could go in the back and get extra chocolate and, to be fair, they let us. Altogether, we bought 4,000 bars of chocolate.

“We were in a Home Bargains store and I had some strange looks off people because it was like an episode of Supermarket Sweep, I was just sweeping packets of chocolate off the shelves.”

Gwyn and deputy mayor Alan Waller then loaded up the car on Friday and delivered their home-made selection boxes to pupils at both Builth High School and Builth Primary School, as well as Llanelwedd Church in Wales Primary School and even local creches and day care nurseries – supplying chocolates and smiles to nearly 1,000 local children in all.

To complete the brilliant community spirited festive gesture, deputy mayor Alan spoke to local firm The Burger Manufacturing Company, who wrapped up the packages, with stickers and a Christmas message from the town council.

“I was glad to put it all in the car because we had it stored in the house and it was getting in the way,” added Gwyn.

“I spoke to all the headteachers and clerk Louise Hammond spoke to the creches. We all took shifts to pack the bags as we couldn’t do it all together because of the restrictions. I think it’s gestures like this that will go a little further this year.”