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There are quite a few very sensible grown-up people who do not believe that Father Christmas lives in Lapland or at the North Pole; they do know that Santa Claus is a very ordinary man and it is only in the days immediately before Christmas that he becomes extremely special.
For a long time Santa has been trying to find a better way to deliver the Christmas presents; he is thoroughly fed-up with the old system, he thinks that the reindeer are smelly horrible creatures and that the sleigh is an ancient nineteenth century Victorian relic. He had wanted to ‘move with the times’ for many years and would be quite happy to get into the twentieth century, even though everybody else was already living in the twenty first.
Over the years, Santa has relied heavily on his good friend Fred Lonsdale who has had access to all sorts of interesting vehicles including a Lake District steam launch, an electric milk float and a 1907 French grand prix car. In the past, Santa Claus had persuaded Fred to allow him to use several of these vehicles, invariably with no success. Fred was, and still is quite sure that the only way Santa could be certain of making his deliveries was by reindeer and his sleigh, as usual. “Santa,” he said one day, “I know you want to get on, I know that you are keen to modernise but you must accept, that old Blitzen and his pals are the only way; modernisation is not appropriate, it is not an option.”
“I can’t agree with you,” Santa interrupted, “you are wrong, reindeer are out of date, like the horse and cart; it’s just a question of finding the right sort of vehicle to replace them.”
Before he could continue, Fred interjected, “Not true, you must know that your present set-up has worked without fault since the time of the industrial revolution when Stevenson and Brunel developed the railway system and had steam trains chuff-chuffing all around the country.
Santa answered him, “I know that you truly believe that, but I can’t agree with you; our little steam train nearly worked very well the year before last.”
“Exactly, but nearly is no good,” Fred said, “no good at all; the heat from the boiler caused havoc with your wheels and for every foot you moved forward, you slid back half a yard. Steam trains only run on the flat, they don’t like hills.”
“What about the mountains in places like Switzerland?” Santa asked.
“They have special trains and special tracks,” Fred explained, “They use cog-wheels and a rack system but that would be no good to you; you need free flight.”
Santa had to agree that it wasn’t easy, “There must be a way,“ he said, “to sort this out; there just has to be a way. What about that new thing you’ve got in your workshop, what’s that for?”
“D’you mean my ‘Cherry Picker’?,“ he asked, Santa nodded, “It’s for picking cherries.”
“Be serious, Fred,” Santa said, “it looks to me like a modern version of those old vans with extending towers they used to use to look after the street lights, overhead lines for trams and things. That might do for me.”
“Hardly,” Fred replied, “but you are right, it’s a modern version of what they used to call Tower Wagons it is a lifting platform, as you said, but it won’t lift high enough; it is not designed for anything over about ten metres. I doubt if it would get you onto the roof of a three storey building.”
Santa asked, “ten metres, what’s that in real money?”
“Just over thirty feet,” Fred answered, “Not high enough and ... if the ground is uneven, you have to be very careful or it might topple over; you really need to use the stabilisers every time, no matter how level the ground is and that takes quite a long time. No,” he concluded, “it really is not suitable at all, I’m afraid.”
Fred tried to put him off the cherry-picker idea but Santa was very persistent and eventually Fred gave in and, against his better judgement, agreed to allow his friend to use the machine. “I can’t imagine it doing the job”, he said, “but you are  welcome to try; you must let me show you how to use it and you will have to practice, particularly with the stabilisers; it could be dreadful if you get it wrong.”
Santa’s ordinary cherry-picker training could be done in daylight, people who saw the vehicle at work would not make any connection with Father Christmas but he would have to do his special practice late at night when it was dark, as it would be on Christmas Eve.
Santa turned up at the workshop and Fred showed him the controls and told him how to use them; he explained how it was necessary to get the vehicle into the right place for the job as it was not very manoeuvrable, “not like the single arm hydraulic types that are more common,” he explained, “you need to reverse the vehicle so that the back is facing the wall and it must be near enough for the cradle to finish up close to the wall, or better still, the chimney. You mustn’t be too near the wall either; you will need a lot of practice and it will be very difficult in the dark without someone to help you. You’d better take a good torch with you.”
Santa was a fast learner and soon told Fred that he was ready to try operating the cherry-picker in the dark. “It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,” he said, “I feel quite confident but now I must practice on my own in the dark; I’m looking forward to this; I feel very positive about it, it will be the beginning of a new era, an era without smelly reindeer.”
The practice in the dark was quite encouraging but, after a couple of hours, when Santa returned to Fred’s garage, he said, “That wasn’t bad at all but it might be different when I am in full Father Christmas mode; remember I become rather large around the belly, in fact big everywhere except in height. I really should do more practice, particularly in older places where the houses are close together, in narrow winding streets with difficult corners and different levels. Fred agreed that he should have another go the following evening, Christmas Eve, before he set off on his real journey.
Fred spent Christmas Eve walking around his headquarters, prodding things, checking that ribbons and string were properly tied, all labels were in place and generally getting in everybody’s way. Soon after it was dark, Santa, properly dressed in his Father Christmas outfit, was ready to go; he checked his lights, kicked the tyres and then started the engine. “Why do you kick the tyres like that,” Mrs Claus asked, “I’ve seen you do it before?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, feeling a bit foolish, “It’s what lorry and van drivers do.”
Mrs Claus, who didn’t like the cherry-picker one little bit, helped him squeeze into the driving seat and insisted that he took a mobile telephone with him.
“I’m only going to be gone for a little while,” he said, “two hours at the most, I won’t need a ‘phone.”
“Take the ‘phone!” she said sternly.
Santa didn’t argue, he knew what would happen if he did.
It started snowing at about this time each Christmas Eve and Santa was feeling quite very happy about his choice of vehicle and confident that it was going to be a good night. He moved from house to house and then decided to tackle the imposing two hundred year old Tangletree Manor before returning home to get ready for his annual important task. He drove the cherry-picker quietly up the drive, turned it round in front of the house and reversed it into place; he didn’t bother with the stabilisers.
Santa got his bits and pieces sorted out, put on his woolly gloves and then climbed out of the driver’s seat; he left the engine running to power the lift, climbed into the cradle and set the machine in motion. Santa rose smoothly and quietly up to the top of the wall; he edged the cradle into place and climbed carefully onto the parapet.
While Santa was looking at the slates on the roof and at the chimney he failed to notice a young couple appearing from nowhere, they were, in fact, taking a short-cut home from a boozy night at the pub and were enjoying themselves trying to make snow-balls to throw at each other.
They stopped in their tracks when they saw the cherry-picker; the young man slurred, “Like, wozat?”
“Dunnow, like, it’s a funny cherry-picker thing with its engine running, innit”, the girl replied, “ d’you like fancy a ride innit?” With that she jumped into the driver’s seat and fiddled with the controls. The young man stumbled as he moved over to the passenger’s side of the vehicle.
Not many seconds later, Santa was surprised when he turned round and noticed the cradle moving away from the wall and start descending; he slid down the roof on the slippery slates, leaned over the parapet and shone his torch on the moving vehicle as the young man was clambering aboard.
Santa was dumbstruck for a moment but then called out, “Oi, what are you doing, leave my machine alone?”
The young woman giggled and shouted, “Come on Jack, don’t mess about, hang on, we’re on our way.” Jack was not very happy, “We mustn’t do this, Clare, it’s wrong.”
“Oh don’t be daft, someone left it for us, it was there for us to use; now don’t be a chicken. I’m going, are you coming?”
 Jack was a bit of a wimp and wasn’t feeling too good; he didn’t fancy walking the rest of the way home so he sat quietly as Clare put the machine in gear and hurtled down the drive.
By the time the cradle was fully lowered, the machine was speeding, erratically down the drive. Santa was devastated, stranded on the roof of the big house. There was only one thing he could do; he took the mobile out of his pocket and called home.
Mrs Claus was not amused, Santa knew that she would give him a hard time but he had no alternative; he really couldn’t call the fire brigade and he couldn’t recall how to access the ‘phone book’ and he couldn’t remember Fred’s number. Santa’s wife made him squirm a bit before she said that she would get in touch with Fred to see what. If anything, he could do. “In the meantime,” she said, “I’ll get the elves to make sure the reindeer are fed and watered and the sleigh is ready for you.”
When Fred’s phone rang, he was ‘playing’ with his new toy; he had wanted a helicopter for ages and had acquired one at last. Mrs Claus explained Santa’s predicament and Fred assured her that he should be able to rescue Santa from the Manor house. “I am flying very near it now and I can see something going on”, he told her; minutes later he was hovering above Tangletree Manor. Fred phoned Santa and was able to tell him what to do to get into the helicopter and, in no time at all, they were on their way, flying through the snow back to Santa’s workshop.
The drunken couple were caught by the police and thrown into the cells before appearing in front of the magistrates after Christmas; Fred’s cherry picker was returned to him but questions were asked about what it was being used for at that time of day.
Santa was oblivious to all this; he made his deliveries by reindeer in the time-honoured way and, when he got home, all he could say was,
“That’s what I need; I must get me a helicopter next year.”
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