Viewers will have seen John, 80, in the witty Christmas Morrison's advertisement last year as the bearded Santa trying to buy carrots for his reindeer incognito in the supermarket. They may also recognise John, of Leylands Road, Burgess Hill, from his numerous TV appearances and local Christmas events.

In the run-up to Christmas there's a Channel 4 documentary and a few new tips at the Ministry of Fun's Santa School to hone his skills with other seasoned Father Christmases. And most importantly he is set to make hundreds of children's Christmases when they meet the great man in person.

The veteran actor though learned his craft from the great Rex Harrison and worked with legends such as Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews and Stanley Holloway. He played alongside Harrison in the first run of My Fair Lady at the famous Drury Lane Theatre in London.

He told the Mid Sussex Times: "I was playing the butler to Rex Harrision as Henry Higgins. When I was offstage I would stand and watch Harrison and learned so much from him. He could colour a vowel to achieve an effect. He was a most wonderful actor, one of our greatest.

"Working with children, you have to strike up a rapport with them. But it's marvellous, they really do believe in you and their eyes light up when they see Santa."

It all started when he grew a goatee for another role and his agent suggested he went on to grow a full beard to get some Santa roles. Since then John has been sleighing them ever since, his Santa role taking him all over Europe on the books of firms like Boo and the Ministry of Fun.

Leaving My Fair Lady in 1963 was a wrench because of losing the companionship of a cast of 68. He said: "It gets to be like a club. You know everybody and after a while you begin to relax and we'd sometimes play games like bridge or chess.

"Every time I wanted to leave Fair Lady they raised my salary.
"They were cheeky like that. I started at £20 a week and ended up on about £38 a week, working with people like Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews and Stanley Holloway.

"I was a support actor, never a star. The trouble with being a star is you can be out of work for a time because there is no role for you.
He said: "I never really earned really big money but my wife - the late Pauline Greta - and I had enough money to live on and we loved going to work. I think my attitude has been that £300 a week could be happiness and £3,000 a week could be unhappiness."

That philosophy has equipped him well for stepping into the shoes of his feel-good alter-ego. He said: "I have certainly had a wonderful life acting."