A COUPLE who run a post office and convenience store in Enham Alamain has created a heart-warming cover of a Chris Rea song for Christmas.
The song was covered by Tim and Leslie Francis, who run the Enham Village Store & Post Office on Newbury Road and have made a tradition out of these Christmas covers, last year releasing a cover of Fairytale of New York which went viral.
This year’s video, released on Facebook on Thursday, December 22, shows Tim driving to meet Leslie at the shop, all while singing Driving Home for Christmas by Chris Rea.
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Tim said that the couple was originally not planning on shooting a video this year, but decided to change their minds due to requests from locals.
He explained: “It took us two days to film it and I didn’t realise there were so many roundabouts in Andover, because I think I went round them all twice.”
Tim continued: “This year we were thinking about a song that could match my voice, which is not an easy task!
“And we came up with Chris Rea because people like that song at Christmas and the rest of it sort of fell into place.
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“We were coming up with all these different ideas of what to do and what to put in it; it took us a couple of hours to do the audio and then it took us nearly all day to do the filming in secret around the village and it just all came together.
“The reason we do it is to put a smile on people’s faces this time of year.”
As with previous years, the video was shot by Enham resident James Cumpsty, who also worked on the audio for the video.
Leader of Test Valley Borough Council Cllr Phil North commented on the video, saying: “Well done Leslie and Tim.
“A very entertaining Christmas video as has become customary.”
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Tim said that he wanted to thank Leslie and James for all of their work on the video, as well as team members Sue Hopkins and Gay Wood for their work on the video, as well as the shops customers for all their support.
He also teased plans for a video next year, saying: “My wife’s already come up with a good idea for next year, so I think you can safely say there will be one next year.”
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