Seasonal goodwill and cheer began for hundreds of old age pensioners in Coventry today when the distribution of 8,500

Seasonal goodwill and cheer began for hundreds of old age pensioners in Coventry today when the distribution of 8,500 parcels from the Lord Mayor's Christmas Fund started in the crypt of St. Mary's Hall in Bayley Lane. Each of the pensioners filed through the building to receive one of the parcels which contained 15 grocery items pakced in gay carrier bags. The bag included a Christmas pudding, tea, sugar, biscuits, tins of steak, chicken, sardines, salmon, cream and fruit. The Lord Mayor, Alderman W. Parfitt, was there to give a Christmas greeting to the first few hundred arrivals and to hand them personally an envelope containing a Christmas card and 2s. 6d. to have a Christmas drink from me." The cost for this gesture was ??6,000. The parcels were put together in a 10-hour marathon by 2 dozen volunteers from the Welfare and Town Clerk's departments in their own time. They worked for 2 and a half hours each evening fortified by a buffet tea supplied by the Lord Mayor. 17th December 1965"