‘It’s about death, not Christmas’

The creator of Christmas favourite, The Snowman, said he is frustrated at how his story was hijacked by sentimentalists — saying it was meant to be about death.

Raymond Briggs, who wrote the story in 1978 and is a self-confessed “miserable git”, has finally consented to a sequel — The Snowman and The Snowdog — which will be broadcast by Channel 4 on Christmas Eve.

The original, Oscar-nominated The Snowman, famed for the scene of the boy and his snowman taking flight to the iconic strains of Walking in the Air, has been screened thousands of times at Christmas since 1982.