Couple's 375-mile Christmas trip to help stranger

Jay, pictured with his mum Michelle, will be acting in the ensemble of Beauty and the Beast at Camberley Theatre in Surrey

How far would you travel to get a young person you'd never met back to their family this Christmas?

How about 375 miles (604km) from south Wales to Surrey, then up the M25 to Watford Gap and back home again?

It feels like a feel-good Christmas movie, but that is how one couple from Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, have chosen to spend their Christmas Eve this year.

After hearing a mum call in to BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show to say how her 19-year-old son will be left stranded in Surrey on Christmas eve due to the train strikes, Sarah Watkins and husband Steve wanted to help.

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Mrs Watkins told the BBC Radio Wales Drive programme: "The whole reason for it, plain and simple, Michelle’s a mam and she wants to have her baby with her. 

"We too are parents and our babies are with us, albeit they’re older but they’re going to be with us on Christmas Day and this young man was going to be on his own in Surrey on Christmas day with no specific plans because of the strikes."

Jay is performing in the pantomime Beauty and the Beast in Camberley Theatre on Christmas Eve, and had train tickets booked to go home to be with his family in Skipton, Yorkshire, on Christmas day.

However, his mum was heartbroken when they realised the rail strikes meant he would have to spend Christmas alone.

Ms Airey told Jeremy Vine earlier in the week she "had a few days of crying, trying to figure out how to get him home and it would be a 10-hour round-trip".

Now she will be reunited with her son for the day, before he has to return to Surrey for the Boxing Day performance.

Ms Airey told the BBC it was "unbelievable" that talking on the radio could lead to the couple offering to help.

Mr and Mrs Watkins will leave Abergavenny early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, pick Jay up and deliver him to his grandad, who will do the last leg of the journey.

The couple will then return home to spend Christmas with their children.

They have been promised entertainment in the car on their long journey.