Catering company owners ended up driving 50 miles delivering food to 32 homes after a Christmas party was cancelled.

Claire and Michael Wood, who have run Claire's Catering in Gillingham since 2009, were due to be providing tea boxes for the Darby and Joan club based in Wigmore yesterday.

Their Christmas do was cancelled due to the weather conditions, however the couple decided that instead of letting the food go to waste, they would hand deliver it to each person's address themselves.

Michael, 59, said: "We saw the weather forecast and we sort of knew what was going to happen.

"They were too scared to come out in the snow and the ice which is understandable. They were worried that if one of them fell they wouldn't be able to get an ambulance and so they said they had to call it off.

"I said 'don't worry we've got a car we'll get the food to them' – I put my Christmas jumper on and said we'll get the food to every single person, so we did."

They compiled a list of everyone's addresses, scraped the snow and ice off their car and set off to deliver all 32 boxes, which took about three hours.

"It took a bit longer than we thought it would but it was worth it," he said.

"Some of the ladies hugged my wife. They couldn't believe that we'd gone out of our way, and you could see the joy – there was hugs, kisses, tears, it was really heart-warming.

"I didn't want them to miss out on it, they've probably missed out on so much over the last few years because of Covid and not being able to go and do things, and then their Christmas party comes along and it snows."

The club members range from the age of 70 to 102, and they usually meet at the Howard Memorial Hall.

The couple have catered for the group before, for the Queen's Jubilee, and had been specially requested to put the Christmas-themed boxes together, which included mini pies and yule logs.

Michael continued: "They were all very excited about it – it was a long day for us but it was worth it, there was like an inner glow feeling.

"Obviously it costs us a little bit extra in petrol but it didn't matter, what are we going to do with 32 tea boxes? It made sense to take them to the people that wanted them."