CHRISTMAS left a sour taste in the mouth of delivery driver Christopher Jones, who discovered his 14 years with City Link were up as the rest of the nation tucked into their turkey leftovers.

The Coventry-based company, which has a depot at Interface Business Park in Royal Wootton Bassett, called in administrators from Ernst & Young on Christmas Eve.

Investment firm and owners Better Capital blamed years of substantial losses for the difficult decision to ultimately pull the plug.

Fifty-four of the original 73 employees were axed on New Year’s Eve, with another five announced yesterday.

Christopher, 56, of Whiteman Street in Gorse Hill, Swindon, would have completed his 14th year with the business next month, but found he would enter 2015 unemployed.

After taking his mother home on the evening of Christmas Day, Christopher and his wife returned home to put the national news on and his jaw dropped at what he saw.

“There was nothing on BBC, so I put Sky News on and I was sitting there at 10 O’clock. It was the second item- City Link has gone into administration,” he said.

“I was stunned. We looked at each other and just said ‘what’s happened?’ “It stinks really. Somebody must’ve known what was wrong. It came out in December, but they must’ve known in September something was wrong.

“They just let us go out there to complete all the Christmas work because if they had told us earlier what was going to happen, nobody would’ve worked, would they?

“Somebody knew on Christmas Eve. I’m not going to stir the muck, but if they did know, why didn’t they tell us?”

The veteran driver handed in his day’s paperwork and scanner at 2.15pm on Christmas Eve, when his shift ended, with no clue what was to come in the following 24 hours.

“The manager just said ‘have a good Christmas, lads, see you when you’re next in,’” he said.

“Whether the manager didn’t know, I don’t know. I got on well with him.”

Christopher returned to work at 6am on Monday, December 29, where he was greeted by a supervisor who told him an administrator was already on-site to deal out the bad news.

At that stage there was no confirmation of numbers for the exit door, but there would be no work for the drivers from then on.

Christopher said several colleagues questioned the administrator on why this had come about, and he pointed the finger at mismanagement from above.

Last out of work 14 years ago, Christopher is now looking for more delivery work and has appealed for any businesses to get in touch and take advantage of his experience.

“There’s nothing we can do about it. We decided to do something about it quicker rather than later and went down Commercial Road to all the agencies, but it all requires the internet nowadays,” he said.

If anyone is interested in speaking to Christopher about a role in their business, he is available on 01793 430738.