DONKEYS from all over the three counties and beyond will be converging in Malvern for the annual Christmas procession.

The event, held to raise money to provide help for donkeys in the Middle East, is rapidly becoming a well-loved part of the festive season in Malvern.

Among the participants on Saturday, December 20, will be Peter, who is something of a donkey celebrity, having won two classes at the Royal Three Counties Show this year and modelled donkey-wear in Countrywide Farmers’ latest equine catalogue.

The festivities will kick off at noon, when the donkeys in festive garlands, accompanied by the Malvern Donkey Procession Choir wearing Christmas costumes, will gather at the Priory gatehouse to sing traditional carols with the public.

At 12.45pm, the donkeys and singers will join the Trench Choir on Belle Vue Terrace for a special event to commemorate the famous 1914 Christmas armistice on the Western Front, when British and German soldiers met in No Man’s Land to exchange gifts and sing carols together.

The procession will then continue down Church Street, making various carol-singing stops along the way, before arriving outside Malvern Theatres to greet Christmas panto-goers with festive songs.

At 3pm, the procession will culminate in a nativity play with carols staged in a specially built Christmas stable in the Priory churchyard.

As always, the Malvern Christmas Donkey Procession will collect donations for the Safe Haven for Donkeys in the Holy Land, a small charity run by a former British Airways stewardess, which operates a sanctuary and provides veterinary care and animal husbandry education on the Israel-Palestine border.

Rev Val Needham, the procession organiser, says “What better way to remember the role played by the donkey in the Christmas story than by easing the suffering of donkeys in the Middle East today?”