Preston Christmas: Annual Scooter Selection Box Run takes place for young patients under the care of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Members of Scooter Clubs from across the Greater Preston area came together to take part in the long-established tradition for Children’s Services at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LTHTR). They collect hundreds of selection boxes, as well as toys and books for LTHTR young patients at Christmas.

This year’s run started at the Yew Tree in Walton le Dale, which opened early for refreshments, heading into Bamber Bridge, before going through Preston city centre, up Church Street, across the ring road, past Deepdale, across Blackpool Road then past Preston Barracks to the White Hart on Watling Street Road, Fulwood, where LTHTR Fundraising Manager, Roya Armstrong, met the members of the scooter clubs.

Bamber Bridge Scooter Club member and organiser of the Scooter Selection Box Run, Norman Hunter said: “We’ve been doing it for more than 20 years now, one of lads from Preston Scooter Club, his wife used to work in the children’s clinic, and because kids were in hospital at Christmas, they decided to do a selection box run, and here we are all these years later.

“There is a club in Leyland, Preston and Chorley, and the selection box run brings them all together, so we can bring the gifts for the children.

“There were probably 70 or 80 of us, we all met up at the Yew Tree, and it was full of scooters – we couldn’t get any more on.

“It was freezing, you have to get wrapped up, but the smile on Roya’s face, seeing all the selection boxes we brought, the comments you get on Facebook from people who saw us going through town, it makes it all worthwhile. Some of the riders trim their bikes with tinsel, and there were a few Father Christmases, and some elves.

“I got a message from someone saying it was his first time on his own scooter, he used to come on the back of his dad’s – that keeps the tradition alive.”