LEFT over from the seasonal slaughter of the thousands of turkeys bred by farmer John Atkinson, three of his birds are now gobbling up the good life.

The lucky trio are at the Only Foals and Horses Animal Sanctuary in Oswaldtwistle after children from Briercliffe County Primary School wrote to Mr Atkinson asking for them to be spared.

A touching tale with a happy ending. Aaah!

But could it, I wonder, be the start of a trend? I mean, there must be thousands like me who, every year, get so fed up of meals of left-over cold turkey that they might also plead with farmers to spare a lot more to save us the effort of eating them.

Either that, or ask them to breed more of the 'enough for one meal only' size.

There's only so much turkey rissole a body can take.