Semi-professional paranormal investigator Johnny Turnip can often be found having a kip under the stars in the town’s parks, meadows, and alleyways with nowt, but a four-pack of Stella and his faithful ferret, Fanny for company.

However, it’s not because he doesn’t have a roof over his head. It’s because he’s a pagan who worships Mother Nature.

Turnip explained to the Chronicle, “I’m not homeless. I’ve got a flat up the Mardy but I enjoy sleeping rough from time to time because it helps me keep it real. I’ve got a traveling man’s blood in my veins. Ever since my great grandaddy Tally Ho Joe Turnip rocked up on the River Usk from the old country in his kayak the Turnips have always been a family of merry wanderers.

"Yet just lately things have been getting a bit uncomfortable for me in this old town.”

Turnip explained how he was at his wit’s end after being repeatedly mistaken for a homeless person by, “big-hearted people who insisted on giving me stuff.”

The charitable intentions of these philanthropic souls were becoming something of an ordeal for Turnip, who explained, “At one point it got really bad. I’d be sipping a can of lager and singing Johnny Cash songs to Fanny in Bailey Park and a gang of happy-clappy people would suddenly appear with their arms full of sleeping bags, pillows, coats, flasks of tea, cakes, sandwiches, torches, toothbrushes. Pretty much everything a survivalist like myself has abandoned. I’m like Rambo dude. I only need two things to get by. My wits and the land.

“Anyhow, they’d leave the stuff with me and say things like, ‘You’re not alone.’ ‘Take care,’ and ‘We’re here for you,’ before disappearing into the night. I was always too gobsmacked to say anything, so I’d just look at them with a big dumb expression on my face which seemed to cheer them up.

“One time a guy kept calling me ‘Mike’ over and over again. I just let that joker get on with it. I wasn’t sure how aggressive they’d get if I told them to do one. So I let them give me stuff and when the coast was clear I’d dump it near a public bin for the council to clear up.”

Concerned that a bunch of Good Samaritans was trying to adopt him because they believed he was a helpless homeless person, Turnip stopped sleeping rough for a while, but then the lure of the wild became too great for him to resist.

Time ticked on, and then in the early hours of one cold December morning a few days before Christmas, he found himself trying to get some shut-eye in the middle of the Eisteddfod Circle in Swan Meadows.

However, his blissful reverie was soon to be shattered by the rudest of awakenings.

Turnip recalls, “I was trying to sleep off a 15-pinter. All was still, and all was quiet, and nothing was stirring not even a mouse, when I heard the rattling of chains and some queer old fish going, “Oooohhhhh. Ooohhhhh. Turnip. Thou sweet Turnip. I have come for you.”

Squinting through the early morning mist rolling off the river, Turnip saw a shadowy figure approach. The stranger had a peculiar gait and was carrying a rather pronounced limp.

As the uninvited guest approached, Turnip noticed he was slightly hunched, wearing a shabby old tracksuit and what looked like a baseball cap embroidered with sparkling jewels.

“Christ alive what have we here!” Turnip remembers thinking to himself.

“At the time I was a bit spooked by what appeared to be a random fruitcake out on a midnight stroll,” said Turnip, who added, “And how did this drunken Jezzabel know my name?

”I wasn’t about to take any chances. So I got my war head on and screamed the challenge that my great uncle Bunny Boy Bam Bam had taught me to address my enemies with. It's not so much a threat in words but a guttural howl.”

Turnip’s declaration of war was just the tonic. It stopped the stranger in his tracks.

Sighing heavily, the stranger lit a fag, inhaled deeply, and said, “Behave yourself Turnip.” Before adding half-heartedly, “Behold! I’m the spirit of Christmas Present and I’m here to remind you the real reason for the season.”

Turnip explained, “I remember thinking who is this head case in the strange clobber? And then it dawned on me like a big fat Christmas bauble, it was just your common garden variety nutter!”

Turnip added, “Now if there’s one thing I know it’s nutters! The world’s full of them, and many of them I’m proud to call a friend. From personal experience, I know that nine times out of ten the best way of dealing with nutters is to take them for a drink and render them incapacitated. So that’s exactly what I did.

“Anyhow, to cut a long story short, over a few cocktails in that flash yellow place in town, we hatched a plan together. Or more to the point, I listened to him waffle on about the importance of giving at Christmas and charitable intentions, blah, blah, blah, and it gave me an idea.

“This head case seemed to think the whole point of Christmas was about giving to those less well off, but that’s coming from a man who’s probably never unwrapped a shiny new Xbox or iPad Pro in the dark hours of Christmas morning, so I just entertained his ramblings with a mild indifference, until he told me about a lock-up he had in Blaenavon.

“That pricked my curiosity. Apparently e had been squirrelling stuff away all through the year because he wanted to give it away to those in need this Christmas. And we’re talking top-of-the-range designer gear and state-of-the-art electronics here.

“At first I didn’t believe the old codger. Firstly, he smelled vaguely of cat urine, and secondly, he didn’t look like the sort of man who lived on the right side of a bottle of Armani aftershave and chunky gold chain for quite some time. But this Turnip was raised to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, even badly-dressed losers.

“So I climbed into my golf buggy and took the trip over the Keepers to take a butcher's at this so-called Aladdin’s Cave for myself. Well, blow me with a feather, the daft old git was telling the truth. He only had a little hideaway up top which was crammed full of great stuff. I mean proper great as in gaming consoles, phones, bottles of booze, hampers, and best of all, box after box of whiter-than-white Nike Airs.

“No sooner had he said, ‘Turnip I want you to be my angel of the morning come Christmas day and distribute these gifts to the needy,’ than I had got on the blower to Big Tony and told him to get his van up here pronto.

“Needless to say, we emptied that lock-up and loaded that Bedford Rascal with everything except the boxes of books. Who wants those for Christmas for Christ’s sake?

“With a promise to the old-timer that I’d do the Santa thing and go around the houses Christmas Day me and Big Tony were off without a second glance.”

Turnip added, “Now at first I did feel a bit mean taking advantage of the old man like that. He obviously wasn’t right in the head and it’s a mystery of how he acquired all that gear in the first place. And when we left him standing on the side of the road, smoking a cigarette, shaking his head, and looking feeble, I did have a pang of regret, but then I instantly thought of how much the stuff would fetch on eBay and I cheered up.”

Turnip said, “I’d be damned if he thought I was going to give the stuff away. I could make a small fortune from it. If things went right this time next year I could be sitting on a beach in Ogmore and living the good life. I’ve always fancied moving to ‘the Og’ and opening up Turnip’s very own beach fat camp. I’d like nothing more than to put porky Bridgend types through the paces whilst helping them lose the lard and tone the timber. People often say I care too much about other people but you can’t help the way you’re made. I’ve just got a big heart and I’m not about to apologise for it either.”

Sadly for Turnip his dream of emigrating to Barry and helping the overweight will have to wait another year, because Big Tony's van of Christmas goodies was stolen by an unidentified culprit.

Turnip told the Chronicle, “Would you believe it? Me and Tony parked up outside a supermarket to celebrate our good fortune with a crate of Prosecco and a pack of pork pies, and when we returned the van everything in it was gone.

“Not only that, but my signed copy of Gary Barlow’s classic autobiography, ‘A Better Me’ was in the glove compartment. I love comedy books and lent it to Big Tony in March. He only had another 282 pages to go and he’d be finished. What’s he going to do over Christmas now?

“Oh well! That’s Starmer’s bloody Britain for you. It’s gutting, but you’ve got to take it not the chin, and move on I suppose. After all, Christmas is all about the cut and thrust and you can’t be too cynical!”