GROUNDWORKER Colm McCarthy knows first hand about life on the streets and has now released a music video to help raise funds for a homeless shelter.

Each year Christmas Care provides some of the town’s most vulnerable people with somewhere warm to spend the festive season in their shelter at Queen’s Drive Methodist Church from Christmas Eve to December 28.

Now Colm, also known as Puff Paddy, has released his own music video on YouTube to do his bit to raise awareness and donations for the needy this Christmas.

The 45-year-old of Moredon said: “I wrote Christmas on the Streets a couple of years ago and I was speaking to the guys from Swindon TV about making a video for it to raise money for Christmas Care.

“The video took about five or six weeks to make in the end, just because I was busy and I had to shoot it when I wasn’t at work. I got three girls to be in it and sing the backing vocals and the chorus.

“The video has a donation number on it for Christmas Care.

“Then I got in touch with Phil McLaughlin, who has the Phil Mack Country Show on Sky 191, and he said he would show the video on his show on December 14 and for every week after.

“The show is seen all over Ireland and all of England too, so it will hopefully raise a lot of money for Christmas Care.

“The video isn’t on iTunes or anything so there’s no profit to me and everything goes towards Christmas Care.”

Colm is no stranger to the hardships faced by the homeless at Christmas after finding himself on the streets when he was just 16.

When he got into trouble as a teenager in Ireland, he found himself on probation and was sent by his parents in County Cork to stay with cousins in London.

But the arrangement fell through and he was left on the streets.

He said: “I have been on the streets myself and from that experience I just want to do what I can to help people in that situation in the way that I needed help.

“I think the work that Christmas Care does is so important. Everyone deserves to have a good Christmas and that’s what Patsy Moloney, who runs the shelter is trying to do.

“I’m just a hard-working man and I’m trying to break into the music business but also trying to do what I can to raise money to help the homeless.”

  • To find out more about Christmas Care and how you could help, call Patsy Moloney on 01793 642368 or visit www.christmascare.co.uk