From the title you might have guessed that Mary, Mel and Sue’s Big Christmas Thank You (BBC One) wasn’t going to be a hard-hitting gun crime expose, but even those who tuned in expecting a hefty dose of goodwill might have been taken aback by this orgy of compassion.

The Big Thank You of the title was delivered to Buffy Williams, a resident of the small town of Pentre in the Rhondda Valley who had, from what we saw here, been pretty much single-handedly keeping an emaciated community going for the past five years.

They’d closed the library, the school, the butcher's and both banks, following the coal mines a couple of decades earlier, but Pentre still had Buffy and Buffy was indomitable – she got the council to let her take over one of many disused buildings and, unpaid, working 40 hour weeks, she set up a community centre.

Quite how this astonishing local hero came to the attention of the BBC before the honours list we shall never know, but having discovered Buffy’s own solo take on the Big Society (remember that?) they pulled out all the stops to show their appreciation. And other than getting the baby Jesus himself to do a meet and greet there is no greater showstopper these days than Mary Berry.