A doting dad-of-three does the school run dressed in wacky Christmas-themed costumes every day - for a heartbreaking reason.
Niall O’Connor, 43, has dressed up as the Grinch, a turkey, a penguin, an elf and Santa to drop his two daughters off at primary school and his three-year-old son at nursery.
The dad-of-three decided to spread festive cheer and raise money for charity in honour of his wife Kirsty who died last March.
The 41-year-old suffered a cardiac arrest in front of Niall while they were at a wedding in Ireland.
Devastated Niall, from Wolverhampton, West Mids., gave up his job as a chef to look after the couple's children Robyn, six, Darcie, five and Sonny, three.
This Christmas he decided to bring smiles to the faces of children and parents by dressing up in a different costume every day in December.
His costume antics have seen him dress up as numerous hit characters and he’s even got other parents in on the act too.
Niall said: “I lost Kirsty 21 months ago. She unfortunately had a heart attack and died. The kids came first.
“I decided at Christmas I wanted to cheer everyone up and myself if you like. I started wearing a costume every day last year. I started wearing 12 or 13 costumes.
“This year all the teachers and the parents were dressed up on the first day. I came in a big grinch costume. All the costumes will be at the school.
“The last day we’ll improve the costumes a bit and I'm sure we’ll get some smiles.
"I get a lot of positive messages from people and that’s the main aim here, make people smile.
"That’s basically what it’s all about, putting smiles on people's faces. The responses have been great.
“Even after the death of my wife the support has been fabulous. Without the school it wouldn’t be possible.
“It will finish on the 21st and it started on the sixth. I just picked the costumes up online, last year I picked them up. I had some that I picked up as I lived abroad.
"I had some from Santa runs where I have done some running. The Grinch is the favourite, that created a lot of laughs. They’re all funny in their own ways.
"Everybody ,the community as a whole, has been great. The traffic lady was great, people beep their horns.
"I walk up to meet their kids. It’s only a ten minute walk but some of them can be quite restricting."
Niall is dressing up to raise money for the Heart Foundation after Kirsty died as a result of a cardiac arrest and he’s raised £500 so far.
He added: “We were attending a wedding in Ireland and Kirsty had a heart attack that night.
"We’d had a beautiful day, we’d had a lovely day. There was no underlying warning. It was her first time away from the kids which was sad.
“It cheers me up to see people happy. I like to cheer people up with their mental health, if it cheers me up it cheers someone else up. If
“On the GoFundMe it’s about £500, then we raised money around the school. I was dressed up as Mrs Clause that day.
“I’m hoping to have all the parents and teachers dressed up and I'll be Santa, I sprayed my beard white last night.
“I’ll do this every year until i can get away with it, until my kids stop me. This is about my wife.
"I want people to remember her. Christmas is a hard time, if we can cheer people up.”
