What goes “Oh, oh, oh”? Santa walking backwards!

Just one of the corny jokes given to us to write on paper chain slips ready to be transformed into garlands by children on mental health wards over Christmas.

Usually GoodGym Bath’s Christmas season begins in early December when we put up the lights and decorations for St John’s Court sheltered housing but this mission certainly put us in festive mood.

Seven of us - Cosmo, Emily, Nev, Meyrick, Mary, myself and Sara - on her first task (welcome Sara!) - took over a huge table at the very welcoming Hall and Woodhouse pub and turned it into Santa’s Workshop. We measured and cut out colourful wrapping paper into slips and then wrote jokes in them and decorated them with seasonal stamps.

In this age of computers and laptops we were all a bit out of practice with handwriting. In fact, it was a bit of a throwback to having to write lines as a punishment at school - but in a fun way.

We managed to come up with 250 paper chain bits and it’s wonderful that they’ll be going to bring joy to children and young people on mental health wards across the country this Christmas.

The patients will assemble the chains - hopefully enjoying the cheesy jokes - and then use them to transform their units. It’s all the idea of the charity CAMHS at Christmas, which was set up to tackle the disparity between the way mental health wards and general children’s wards are treated.

The charity provides hundreds of presents each year and started the paper chain project three years ago. It’s been a huge success - partly because of the way it links the children and young people with the community… it symbolises connectedness and makes them feel they’re not forgotten.

Question: Which GoodGymer was most festive on this mission?

Answer: Mary Christmas! (Merry Christmas - get it?)