WHEN you’re tucking into your turkey or snoozing in front of the Queen’s speech, spare a thought for those putting in a day’s work over Christmas.

From keeping the lights on to fighting fires, hundreds will be working hard so you can have a happy yuletide.

Workers at Didcot Power Station will be giving up their Christmas to keep families fed, heated and entertained in three million homes across the country.

For firefighter and dad-of-two Tony Whiting, working over Christmas has become a tradition.

He has been on call as a retained firefighter for the past 15 years and has to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Mr Whiting, 38, from Wantage, said: “I have to stay within the catchment area of the station and be very conscious of what I am eating. Obviously, I can’t drink over Christmas.”

He said he had been called out over the Christmas period every year.

A full-time firefighter at Bampton by day and a retained watch manager at Wantage in his spare time, he said: “One Christmas Eve I went out at 7.30pm to a barn fire and didn’t get home until 11am on Christmas Day.

“The kids were waiting to open their presents, so it puts a strain on the family.”

Twenty staff will be working the Christmas Day shift at the nPower plant, with both gas and coal-fired power stations working around-the-clock to provide six per cent of the UK’s energy. Performance manager Phil Noake said: “Our job is to make sure when everyone else puts on the oven to cook their turkey, everything works.”

He said engineers at the plant saw huge peaks in demand when families across Britain cooked their Christmas lunch and when blockbuster films were screened in the afternoon.

During advert breaks, there is a surge in electricity demand from pumping stations as people flush their toilets.

Shift engineer Chris Bennett added: “Despite the fact that we’re all working hard, we still find time to throw a meal together and we’ll have Christmas decorations and music to keep the festive spirit going until we finish work and go home to our families.”

The Rev Philip Sutton is head of chaplaincy at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust. His Christmas Day will be spent helping bereaved families or those dealing with serious illness.

He said: “Those difficult experiences are always more difficult at Christmas.”

Mr Sutton added: “Our Christmas meal is literally a movable feast, it’s a part of our tradition.

“We look back with amusement at all the different times we have had Christmas dinner.”