Bury St Edmunds and Farmers Club host Christmas lunch for Ukrainian refugees

A private members club has put on a festive buffet for Ukrainian refugees and their host families.

Bury St Edmunds and Farmers Club, in Northgate Street, hosted 25 Ukrainians including 7 children for a free Christmas lunch yesterday.

Organiser John Howell was pleased with how the event went.

He said: “It went very well and it was a very convivial afternoon with lots of interesting conversations taking place.

“People seemed to really appreciate that we’d done this and it just went down really well.

“We started at 1pm and lots of people were still there at 4pm - so they must have been enjoying themselves.”

The buffet was full of festive favourites including soup and pâté starters, turkey with trimmings and Christmas pudding for dessert.

There was also a magician that entertained the children into the afternoon.

Bury St Edmunds MP Jo Churchill went to the event to show her support.

She said: “The main purpose of today is just to say a great big thank you to the host families.

“I was really happy to pop in to the event and I think it's really important that people know they can reach out to me for help

“They’ve walked away with nothing - I was talking to a young lady and there is no town left where she was brought up.

“It's a very hard thing to imagine.”