Britain’s longest-serving Santa Claus has donned his red suit and white beard for his 61st consecutive Christmas after a brush with death left him “lucky to be alive.”
79-year-old Ray Hulse has handed out thousands of gifts to kids since starting as a hasty stand-in for an absent Father Christmas back in 1962—when he was just 18.
The grandad-of-one has not missed a single year of dressing up since—even managing to carry on through the pandemic with socially distanced appearances at schools and supermarkets.
Mr. Hulse dresses up as Santa and hands out presents all around Bridgnorth, Shropshire—at schools, shopping centers, and supermarkets.
“I will never stop doing it while I’m still alive and kicking, I absolutely love the joy I bring to boys and girls,” said Mr. Hulse, a retired miner and tire fitter, from Bridgnorth, Shropshire. “Last year a little girl came and stood by the door then she ran towards me with her eyes wide open, she was so excited to see Santa!”
Emotional moments like these help Mr. Hulse to continue doing what he does each year.
Recently, however, Mr. Hulse thought he might not be able to continue after he had a close brush with death. On June 15, he was rushed to Telford Hospital after he collapsed due to sepsis and almost died.
“On Sunday, June 11, I went to church and felt really ill,” he said. “I thought I should go to hospital and had an x-ray on Monday and was told to come back on the 15th.”
When he returned, he was so unwell that a nurse took one look at him and sent him for surgery.
“I was apparently close to death,” he said. “I blacked out and woke up strapped to an IV.
“I went into septic shock and very nearly died, somehow doctors managed to keep me alive.”
Mr. Hulse spent the next three months in intensive care, and soon his leg was affected.
“All the skin on my left leg below my knee lifted off, doctors had to swab underneath my shin,” he said.
Mr. Hulse was eventually discharged from the hospital and sent to a nursing home to recover further. He returned home in late August and now counts each and every day as a gift and is “thankful to be alive.”
This year, Mr. Hulse is going bigger and better than ever with the Christmas celebrations as he believes he’s been given a second chance at life.
“It means the world to me to be able to carry on doing it,“ he said. “I have just had all the white stripes of the outfit renewed and have bought some new Santa wellies.”
His outfit has a fluffy white trim around the bottom and seven big imitation diamonds. As he walks, his boots change hue through all the colors of the rainbow.
Over the last six decades, Mr. Hulse has spent 3,000 hours dressed as Father Christmas. He estimates that 12,000 kids have sat on his knee, and he’s handed out around 7,000 gifts.
As if that wasn’t enough, for the last 30 years, Mr.Hulse has been raising funds for Hope House Children’s Hospices.
His fundraising activities are also a way to honor his son Nicholas, who suffered from bipolar disorder and tragically took his own life in 2012 at the age of 40.
“I like to pay tribute to Nicholas’s memory,” he said.
All told, Mr. Hulse has since raised over $76,000 for the cause.
“I’ve never once missed a year,“ he said. ”There aren’t many people that can say they’ve done something for 60 years.”
Mr. Hulse proclaims that he’s the longest-serving Santa in Britain and probably in the world.
“There can’t be many doing it for as long as I have,” he said.
Apart from being in Santa for the last 60 years, he’s also a full-time carer for his wife, Kathleen, 79, who suffers from dementia.
