Heroes for Heroes: Chocoholic to hand out treats to NHS staff in West Yorkshire

John Croft, with neighbours Ivy Greenwell, aged six, and four-year-old brother Ray, who will hand out Heroes to NHS staff in West Yorkshire

Retired IT manager John Croft, 73, of Liversedge, has launched his one-man Heroes for Heroes campaign and with the help of local supermarkets, will be handing out the chocolates to NHS staff in West Yorkshire.

The father-of-two, who has four grandchildren, found a lockdown passion for Heroes when wife Linda brought two tubs home last October.

The mini Crunchie bites and the finger of Fudge are Mr Croft’s favourites and they got him hooked. As he was tucking in one day he came up with the idea of rewarding NHS staff with a chocolate treat - and Heroes for Heroes was born.

“The NHS staff have been true heroes,” said John. “During the first lockdown last year everybody was standing on their doorsteps and applauding NHS workers. They were even given priority in the supermarket.

“But then the Thursday night clapping stopped and we seemed to forget about them. Then I read NHS staff had started getting some abuse and now we have this new lockdown and the new variant of the virus and the NHS is struggling again.

“Our NHS heroes have never been out of the frontline and I just thought it would be nice to show them a bit of appreciation.”

Mr Croft announced his plan on the Facebook group Dewsbury Pictures Old and New and got a great response.

He contacted four major supermarkets with the intention of buying the big tubs only to be told they were only available at Easter, Eid and Christmas.

Morrisons came up trumps and still had 59 tubs left in their warehouse so John snapped them up in exchange of a donation of £90 to the store’s children’s cancer charity CLIC Sargent.

Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s added more than 100 cartons of the chocolates and John has delivered them to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.

The Heroes will be distributed to NHS heroes at Pinderfields and its sister hospital in Dewsbury.

Mr Croft has even found he had two little helpers – neighbours Ivy Greenwell, aged six, and four-year-old brother Ray – who made a special Heroes for Heroes banner.