‘The idea of Father Christmas is based on a very old fact of life that few people have any knowledge of these days. That is: We are given gifts. We have so many gifts given to us every day, like our food, the air we breathe, a nice warm house; but we forget about those gifts. So we put all our gifts together once a year and call it Christmas. And the imagination of all those gifts is put into one exciting figure, Father Christmas, who comes along with all our gifts in a bag. It’s not true. It’s just a story. But the wonder of all the gifts we have – the beauty of life and all the little creatures and all the birds in the garden – that’s real.’