CHRISTMAS CHEER
Heart-warming moment lonely pensioner breaks down in tears after kind strangers bring him a Christmas tree
THIS is the heart-warming moment a lonely penisoner is brought to tears after students gifted him a Christmas tree and sang carols at his door last night.
Terrence, 78, was brought some festive joy at his home in Oldham, Greater Manchester, by students from Oldham College and BBC Breakfast host Dan Walker.
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They paid him a Christmas visit after he'd said earlier on the show that he struggled with loneliness and didn't have a Christmas tree in his house.
Mr Walker surprised Terrence on his doorstep and introduced him to four students from the nearby college — one of whom had brought a Christmas tree.
Terrence came to say hello but he started crying as he greeted the well-wishers individually.
After the students finished decorating the tree, Mr Walker took Terrence to his front door where the college choir sang Silent Night, which overwhelmed him.
'PEOPLE ON THEIR OWN DON'T GET PRESENTS'
Terrence told BBC Breakfast: "What used to happen, I used to go round to my mother's on Christmas Day because I always cooked a meal for her here.
"I always took the thing round to her, and I used to buy her little bits all the time, like cigarettes and all this sort of stuff, and I used to parcel them all up at Christmas and put them in a pillow case and take them round to her.
"One day, I'll never forger her saying to me, she said, 'Do you know, without you, bringing me my presents at Christmas, I wouldn't have any presents would I?'
"I often think about that now. People on their own now don't get any presents from people."
He added that this year he was going to Christmas dinner with Nancy, a 90-year-old woman with dementia whom he met through his work with Age UK Oldham.
Terrence appeared on BBC Breakfast earlier in the day to talk about his depression and loneliness — but how his work with the charity was helping.
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He said: "I always think with anything, unless you've actually been there you don't know what it was like.
"I ddin't know what it was like to have depression until I got it."
Last week, Age UK revealed that millions of elderly people in Britain might not like Christmas because they see it as the loneliest time of the year.
The charity's figures suggested more than three million older people may not be looking forward to the festive season, with roughly 200,000 spending Christmas alone.
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