THERE were full tummies before Christmas lunches were even served on December 25, when locals came together in Clease Hall, Camelford, for their ‘Christmas Community Breakfast’.

It was estimated that Mike Reeve, from the Countryman Hotel, and Tristan Halliday served around 60 full English breakfasts to members of the community — with the help of a large number of volunteers.

Helen Ward, one of the event organisers, said: “It was a really lovely event and was enjoyed by all who attended. Tristan and Mike served around 60 breakfasts in the morning and were ably helped by lots of people from the community. There was a kitchen full of people in the end, helping to wash, dry, serve etc, and it was really lovely to see the whole community getting involved.”

During the morning people were entertained by live music, performed by Kris Lannen from ‘The Grenaways’, which Helen described as ‘fantastic folky music that everyone enjoyed and gave a brilliant atmosphere’.

Helen said: “The morning was fantastic, it is something we do to make sure everyone in the community feels wanted and to enable everyone to come together at Christmas. Most people know each other from the community but many don’t get to see each other that often. The breakfast is a great way for people to come together and have a catch up — some people may not have seen each other since last year’s breakfast!”

Local people donated all the food that was served and all the breakfasts were free. For those who didn’t fancy a full English of bacon, sausage, egg, hash brown, fresh tomatoes and mushrooms, there was a choice of cereal’s on offer and teas and coffees were available all morning.

Helen added: “It really was a wonderful community inclusive event. Everyone got involved, including the local Memory Café who made the table decorations. To ensure that they didn’t go to waste, after the breakfast we took the decoratoins down to the cemetery where we left a note saying ‘feel free to take one’ so people could go and place them on the graves. It was fantastic to see the whole community come together and thee are so many people to thank for all the hard work that went into organising this event!”

All the donated food was used in one way and another, with the left over tins and packaged food being donated to the Camelford Foodbank and the rest of the fresh food will be taken to the ‘Fishes and Loaves’ in Wadebridge, who serve cooked meals to the homeless.