It was a Good Friday they will never forget in Overseal.

Even the Coronavirus lockdown could not stop Cinderella, Mickey Mouse and the Easter Bunny touring the village bringing gifts for children and putting smiles on faces at a time when the advice over the holiday weekend is to stay at home.

It was the idea of everyone at the Robin Hood on Burton Road - and the response could not have been better.

There was laughter and tears of joy as the children greeted the characters - who made sure they kept to social distancing guidelines.

They even made sure one little girl. who was supposed to be going Disneyland before the lockdown, received an extra special gift.

But most of all, they brought the feelgood factor back again at a time when the country is focused on fighting a virus.

The organisers wanted to do all they could to make sure they did not break the rules on social gatherings. as per the Government instructions, but also do something special for Easter.

TJ Lewis, who helps run Robin Hood with his grandparents Ruth and Steve Lewis, explained how the idea came about.

"We were meant to be having a movie night at the church over Easter and we had a huge success with it at Christmas," he said.

"Then we said we'd do the same for Easter, we were going to show Hop and had planned a crafting event before the movie day, but because of lockdown, we couldn't do that - so all the kids missed out seeing the church look fantastic at Easter.

"So we decided to get out as much as possible to the village.

"But it turned out to be a whole lot bigger than that."

In fact, the organisers were surprised at the success of the village tour.

TJ added: "We aimed to greet around 100 children, so maybe 40 or 50 properties.

"It ended up as just over 200 children in our village. Luckily, the guidelines were followed perfectly.

"The families had to stay indoors and look out from the windows, but if they opened the doors, I kept the two metres distance and put gift bags on the ground.

"I waved and walked away. There were three of us dressed as characters. I was Mickey Mouse, one of our drivers was the Easter Bunny and we had one of our lovely regulars Cindy as Cinderella for the little girls.

"We also had a Minion costume, but we thought that four of us might be pushing the rules on gatherings, so we didn't have that character.

"But we all had gloves on. Some people came to the doorsteps and we blew kisses to the kids because that's what they wanted from the characters.

"Then we walk away and carry on to the next house.

"But one of the mothers of a little girl messaged me saying they were supposed to spend their Easter weekend out in Disneyland.

"And she didn't tell her daughter what was going on.

"So we made a special gift pack for her, she's only three years old I think.

"We put a teddy bear in there too with the egg along with colouring books.

"When the door was opened and she saw Mickey Mouse there, she cried, it was amazing to see, brilliant."

The gifts of Easter eggs were supposed to have been for the children watching the film that was planned for this weekend.

But even that gesture grew bigger as time went on - and made an unusual shopping trolley load of goods at the local supermarket.

TJ explained: "The Overseal Gala committee had the fund for the Easter eggs.

"And in the back of the pub, we spent four or five days making these gift bags up.

"I had people sending me messages with their address and how many children they had, and where they were boys and girls, it was crazy.

"Then we spoke to Mandy Elton, the chairman of the Overseal Gala committee, and we asked if Easter eggs could be donated to the gift bags so all the kids had chocolate.

"They said it was absolutely fantastic and they gave us a fund, when we went to Asda, we had to speak to their manager, we couldn't just fill the trolleys with Easter eggs and go to the tills.

"But he said it was no problem at all as there was no limit on Easter eggs.

"So we filled the trollies up and took 200 eggs to the car!

"We got them all in one go. But we wanted to do that for the families and kids in the village but we also have the Overseal care home and we asked them what we can do, and they got Buttons Easter eggs.

"We gave them and the staff some gift packs and also did the same for the Co-op as they're the only shop in the village and got chocolates for all the staff."

In the end, the characters ended up spending six hours visiting homes in the village.

TJ said: "We started at 10am and finished at just before 4pm.

"But we had to do it properly in terms of getting around because of the lockdown.

"We had Mickey Mouse in the back of a convertible with the Easter Bunny as the driver.

"The Mickey Mouse costume was too big for a car door and I couldn't get in.

"We were going to do it in a Range Rover but we decided we needed to have a convertible and one of our friends, Martin from Five Star Carpet Cleaning in Swadlincote, he managed to be our Bunny and our driver with Mickey in the back seat, diagonally, so that we could give the most social distancing.

"Another one of regulars, who's doing our CCTV and electrics at the pub right now, said he'd be a driver with Cinderella in the back. So that's what we did.

"But I could hardly see out of my costume! I had to be guided at times, but it did work out pretty much perfectly.

"We were aware of instruction not to go out, but we'd had so many messages on Facebook saying the kids were so bored and we also have people in the village suffering from depression.

"And we had all the stuff in storage just sitting there until next year.

"Then my auntie who runs The Railway in Swadlincote, she's the one who had all the costumes so we could do the village round and that made it even better.

"For the kids to see the characters dropping the gift bags off and giving them a wave, it made their Easter weekend, especially as they couldn't go outdoors. Everybody loved it."