The colleague and 'agony uncle' who spreads Christmas cheer all year round

To many people in Gosforth our porter John Brown is the face of Asda – he’s the first person that customers see when they visit the store and he loves to help people.

“He’s genuinely an agony uncle to a lot of our customers,” said our Gosforth store manager Emma Frostrick. “They’ll come to him to put the world to rights because he’ll listen. And he’s also somebody who everybody likes to tell their good news to because he cares. When he asks how you are he genuinely wants to know.

“He always puts other people before himself and he has a heart of gold. He’s a really special man.”

John, who is 61, has worked at Asda for 23 years, first in the warehouse and for the last five years as a porter.

“Ijust want to help people. I like to see people smile – it really brightens my day,” said John. “I meet thousands of people through my work and I get so much enjoyment out of it. When I’m off on holiday customers come up to the manager and ask “Where’s John?”

“I get people coming up with their problems and I listen to them. It’s rewarding when they come back and say “thank you”, but I’ll say you don’t need to thank me.”

John has recently started volunteering for his local foodbank, Newcastle West End Foobank in Benwell Lane after meeting them in store while the team were collecting donations.

He is giving up a day a week in the run up to Christmas to volunteer and says he really enjoys it.

John said: “All I want to do really is help people. It’s not their fault they’re in the situation they’re in. The foodbank is a nice place for them to go to get something to eat.

“I just want to give something back and to say to people there’s someone here for you. To me it’s about making somebody’s day brighter whether I’m at the foodbank or at work – I love it!”