Montgomery residents have embraced the suggestion to connect with their neighbours at midnight by shining a light from their window or doorstep.

The idea follows the latest Welsh Government lockdown, the third in 10 months.

In addition, people will be able to watch the town crier count down to midnight on a pre-recorded film, together with a goodwill message to all from mayor Haydn Andrew.

The New Year’s Eve video will be available on the town’s facebook and YouTube pages at fb.me/montgomerypowys and tinyurl.com/MontyCCC

Residents feature on Radio 4

Three Montgomery residents featured on consecutive days on the daily Today’programme, on Radio 4 describing how they were helping to make the best of a difficult Christmas.

Cyndy Humphreys was selected from people who had contacted the programme to explain how her Christmas would be different this year in a “reasons for cheer” segment.

She described how, instead of hosting family members in Montgomery as planned, she and her husband Phil would be leaving Montgomery in the middle of the night, to arrive in Cardiff before Father Christmas, and would be taking with them all the food already secured and prepared, in order to cook the Christmas meal for her daughter’s family in their own home in Cardiff, before returning to Montgomery the same day.

The next day, Montgomery teenager Catrin McDougal, who had planned and delivered a virtual Advent calendar for the community throughout the run-up to Christmas, was interviewed about the project.

Catrin, and her mum Lydia, explained how the advent calendar had worked, who had contributed and how it had brought joy to people in Montgomery, and across the world.

Both interviews are available on BBC sounds at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qj9z - episodes from 21st December (2:58) and 22nd December (1:20).

The online Advent calendar will remain available for viewing for a few more weeks at https://www.montgomery-wales.co.uk/christ/advent/advent.php.

Magic Tree winner

The winner of the Friends of Montgomery Play Park’s first ever fundraiser was announced just before Christmas.

Julie Owen won a miniature real Christmas Tree with lights and decorated with £15 of lottery scratchcards.

When presented with the tree, Julie said that it had made her day and that she was delighted to have won.

The tree and scratchcards had kindly been donated by a supporter of the association and has been on display for most of December in Montgomery’s Bunners store.

Treasurer of the Friends of Montgomery Play Park, Mrs Phillips, said: “We are very grateful to Bunners and the local community for supporting us with our first fundraiser to improve the play park facilities in the town.

“The money raised is a big step in the right direction for us and I thank everyone who bought a ticket or helped to promote it.”

Due to COVID-19, the raffle draw was held as a live event on Facebook at noon on Sunday, December 20.

If you would like to support the town to improve its play park you can donate at paypal.me/montyplaypark and follow the group on facebook at fb.me/montgomeryplaypark

The ‘Welshest’ town in Hungary

MAYOR Haydn Andrew sent warm seasonal greetings in Hungarian to the Polgármestere of Kunágota.

Kunágota styles itself the most Welsh village in Hungary and, although few of the residents have ever visited Wales, they enjoy an annual Welsh concert and never miss an opportunity to sing Sosban Fach or Cwm Rhondda.

Kunágota is a village about twice the size of Montgomery situated in the south of Hungary near the Romanian border.

The residents of the town were delighted by Montgomery’s ‘Building Bridges’ video that was even shown on national Hungarian television.

The mayor also sent greetings from himself, councillors and residents to the Bureau de Commerce and residents of Montgommery in the Calvados region of Normandy in France who also made contact this year and sent the town a translation of the story of the de Montgomerie family and their descendants.

In return, a copy of the seminal ‘Story of Montgomery’ book authored by Ann and John Welton has been sent to France.

The mayor commended businesses and volunteers who had rallied around and were a credit to the town.