ED SHEERAN has finally ended Clean Bandits’ nine week stay at the top of the UK singles chart.

However, the London-based trio, accompanied by Sean Paul and Anne Marie, deserve credit for eventually giving us an original Christmas Number One following years of cover versions emanating from the dreadful X Factor and a plethora of dirges posing as charity singles.

Who can forget that monotonous song from the NHS choir in 2015?

Clean Bandits’ song actually also tells a story, about a single mother struggling to raise a six-year-old child.

No doubt around this November we’ll revert to type and have the Facebook luvvies running a campaign to get Wham’s Last Christmas to number one to commemorate George Michael’s death.

Let’s hope it’s thwarted by something more cheerful and original again.

Gavin Ellis, Darlington