Father Christmas With James Brown The look of last year’s Santa Claus model was based on classic Coca-Cola advertising. This year I chose to mark the release of Iron Maiden with a quintessentially British Father Christmas. This jolly fellow was inspired by the work of popular British writer and artist Raymond Briggs.

Briggs's controversial anti-war books When the Wind Blows and The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman slightly traumatised me when I was a kid in the ‘80s.

He has also written a number of well-known humorous books like Fungus the Bogeyman. For most people, though, he is best known for sweet nice children’s books like Father Christmas and The Snowman.

	Father Christmas, in his rather conspicuous Chieftain tank, brings Christmas joy to all the good boys stationed in Germany. The squaddies are clearly thirsty this year, because they have all asked for the same thing: Herforder Pilsner in the familiar ‘yellow handbags’ – the 10-packs which seem to fit perfectly into all of the Chieftain’s stowage lockers.