TV STAR Ryan Thomas had hearts fluttering across Redcar at the weekend when he opened the borough's Christmas fair.

Thomas, who plays Jason Grimshaw in Coronation Street, started the three-day festival at Friday's lights switch-on.

The festival continued on Saturday and yesterday and Father Christmas attended every day. There were performances by choirs, dancers, a log cabin market, the Redcar donkeys, jugglers and craft fairs. Redcar Mayor Olwyn Peters was there for the switch-on and attended the fair on Saturday.

She said: "If you think back a year ago we'd not long lost Corus and there was a bit of doom and gloom. Now we've got SSI taking over the steelworks, a big new Te sco's opening, the regeneration and you could tell the crowd were really up for it.

"I'd like to really pay tribute to our events team.

We've had cut backs, but they really came through on a tight budget and we had a great festival.

"You could tell all the females were swooning over Ryan Thomas, and that includes me. He gave all the girls from the One Step Ahead Dance Studio a kiss, but he should have given them a hug because those poor girls were freezing in their leotards.

"He was a really nice guy, very interested in everything going on and all the people. There were thousands there, you could just see a sea of faces all the way up the High Street.

It was fantastic."