Elderly Welsh man dies and leaves two-year-old neighbour 14 years of presents

An elderly man, who combatted loneliness by taking on challenges in later life such as skydiving and wing walking, left his two-year-old neighbour 14 years’ worth of Christmas presents.

Ken Watson, who died recently, had stockpiled presents for Cadi Williams, aged two, who lived next door to him in Barry in Wales.

Cadi’s dad, Owen, revealed his neighbour’s generosity on Twitter saying: “Our elderly neighbour passed away recently. His daughter popped round a few moments ago clutching a large plastic sack. In the sack were all the Christmas presents he’d bought for our daughter for the next thirteen years.”

He added: “He always told us he’d live till he was 100-years-old, so these gifts would have taken him up to our little girl’s 16th Christmas.”

Ken was a retired commercial deep sea diver and admitted to being very lonely after his wife Beryl died in 2012. He revealed he could go as long as six days without speaking to anyone and said there was a “space around me”.

Owen and his wife Caroline Williams admit they both cried on receiving the sack full of gifts.

The family have opened just one of the presents so far. It is a children's book called Christmas Eve at the Mellops by Tomi Ungerer. They think some of the other presents are books and soft toys.

After the story went viral, Owen added on Twitter: “I sincerely hope I’ve done Ken and his family justice in all this. It’s starting to feel like the plot of a Richard Curtis Christmas film.”