CHRISTMAS came early for a group of pensioners.

Pupils at Crossflatts Primary School in Bingley helped raise most of the £175 needed to serve up a three-course festive meal, including soup, turkey with all the trimmings, and trifle to 35 invited guests at Charnwood Community Centre, Charnwood Road, Undercliffe.

Stephen Cannar, 32, who works at Crossflatts Primary but lives in Undercliffe, organised the event with help from his eight-year-old nephew Cameron Cannar, who is a pupil at Wellington Primary School in Bradford, and the deputy head teacher of Crossflatts Primary School, Nina Dobson.

Crossflatts pupils Isabel Aydon-Butler, aged 11, William Reynolds, aged ten, and Anna Exley, also ten, helped serve up the meal for which contributions were also made by Telegraph & Argus readers after a report was published about Mr Cannar’s plans for the special lunch.

As well as the meal, there was carol singing and dancing.

Mr Cannar said: “The children and elderly both thoroughly enjoyed the day.”