While everyone else is sitting down to their Christmas lunch, volunteers across the county are rolling up their sleeves preparing to cook for scores of pensioners who would otherwise be on their own.

In Devizes Christopher Sloane, 71, and his wife Pam, 69, joined forces with Roundway parish councillor Jeanette Vonberg to arrange the first pensioners’ lunch this year with a team of about 20 volunteers.

Mrs Sloane said: “We have been overwhelmed by the willingness of people offering to help and we have a great team of volunteers who would rather help with our event and then have their own celebrations later on.”

The meal is being held from noon to 4pm at Sheep Street Baptist Church and will includes lunch, musical entertainment and Christmas activities.

It is free to pensioners, although donations will be welcomed and it has 27 people signed up, with space for 64.

Susan Connolly, business development manager of the Spar store in Pewsey, is also organising a Christmas Day community lunch.

She said: “I wanted to go to a soup kitchen and volunteer but there isn’t one in the area.”

More than 30 guests are expected to sit down to lunch at the Bouverie Hall. She said: “I want everybody to feel involved, even down to the seating plan – it’s designed so everyone is facing inwards so nobody is sitting on a table where they don’t know anybody.

“I want to make it really special because my grandparents are going too.”

While this type of event is a first for Miss Connolly, in Marlborough the long-standing Christmas Day lunch in the Town Hall is being organised by Nigel and Joy Kerton for the last time in 11 years.

Mrs Kerton said: “A couple of weeks before Christmas we can’t use our dining room because it’s full of boxes of chocolates and tins of biscuits.

“Every year my mum makes the mince pies and our daughter Claire makes 80 sausage rolls, so it’s very much a family event.

“We go and set up on Christmas Eve and then on Boxing Day we’re back to clear up so it really is a hectic three days because you have to do the family things as well. There’s so many helpers, we’ve had to turn people away again this year.”

Mr Kerton said: “It takes most of December to think about it and plan it. It’s not difficult, it’s just like cooking a Sunday roast at home but multiply it by 10. Joy does all the work and I’m front of house – all I do is meet and greet and tell jokes.”