Santa Claus takes a quick break at the Salisbury Journal offices in Rollestone Street before beginning his busy time distributing presents to the patients on all the wards at Salisbury District Hospital. Picture by ROGER ELLIOTT. DA4728IF ever someone embodied the Christmas spirit of goodwill, it's surely a 37-year-old man from Durrington.

The man who does not wish to disclose his name, is to give up his family Christmas Day for the seventh year running in order to play Santa, delivering gifts to patients at Salisbury District Hospital.

An insurance broker for 51 weeks of the year, the volunteer Santa, who keeps his identity a closely guarded secret to protect the magic of Christmas, now devotes much of the festive season to preparing for the big day, which last year saw him spend an incredible 11 hours working his way around the wards.

He said: "Christmas is now held on Boxing Day in our house, although I'm usually too exhausted to do anything!"

All this is on top of being a husband and father to two small children.

Santa explains that it all started when he and his wife could not decide where to spend Christmas.

He said: "We were arguing over whose parents to visit, so in the end we decided to do some voluntary work instead. That year I went round four wards, but the hospital only had £25 to spend per ward on gifts and food, which I thought wasn't good enough so I decided I wanted to do more to help."

Every year since then he has undertaken a growing operation to gather gifts donated from local businesses. This year he will be delivering an amazing £5,000 worth of presents to patients on 23 wards, which he does with the use of a specially adapted motorised hospital tug, for which he even had to get a licence to use.

"I couldn't do it without the help of the local business community - they've been excellent," he adds. One firm is even donating a van for the week so he can collect the gifts and ferry them to the hospital.

The kind-hearted volunteer says that the reason he does it is "probably because I'm mad", but ultimately he feels it is the right thing to do.

He said: "I have the choice to be there at Christmas that the patients don't, so anything to brighten up their Christmas is worth doing. It is far from a one-man effort though - there are lots of people involved and I would like to thank them all for their help."

Sarah Delves, voluntary services manager at the hospital, believes their Father Christmas is a truly remarkable man.

She said: "Patients and staff get gifts to brighten up their day, and it's marvellous to see the joy and appreciation that his visit brings."

Because of the added commitments of his young family, this year Santa is hoping to lighten his load by splitting the deliveries to include some on Christmas Eve.

"I'm hoping to get around the wards by 2pm on Christmas Day this year, but I guess we'll see how it goes," he said.