THE historic west Wales town of Jumper put itself on the map today with “a silly, fun gesture” to show its support for children suffering across the globe.

The town –known as Cardigan for most of the past millennium – adopted the name change to highlight Save the Children’s annual Christmas jumper fundraising day on Friday, December 16.

Residents, schoolchildren, civic leaders, town businesses, police officers, the town rugby team and even pets and farm animals donned their festive pullovers to celebrate the big occasion.

The name-change was launched by Jumper mayor Clive Davies at a ceremony in the town’s Guildhall at 8am on Thursday where youngsters from the town’s two schools Jumper Primary School - Ysgol Gynradd Siwmper – and the secondary school - Ysgol Uwchradd Siwmper – sang.

Cllr Davies – the driving force behind the name change – said the town had wholeheartedly got behind the idea, which will see the new name continue until Christmas Day, after which it will revert to its more familiar title.

“The whole town has got behind the name-change,” said Cllr Davies.

“It’s a fun and silly idea but it’s obviously very important to remember that there is a serious message behind it.

“We are all delighted and proud to be showing our support for Save the Children.

“We have 110 businesses in the town and everyone one of them is taking part and has collection boxes. Martin Radley, chairman of the town traders has been fantastic.

“The schools, the police and even the farmers are taking part, dressing their animals in Christmas jumpers.

“We have even got people changing the name of the hometown on Facebook, which is fantastic.

“We really hope this will help put Siwmper - and Cardigan - on the map on the map.”

Mary Powell-Chandler, head of Save the Children Cymru, said: “We would like to say a massive, massive thank you to the people of Cardigan.

Our work every day shows us that there are children in terrible situations, in Yemen, in Aleppo in Syria, and even here in Wales.

“Those children will not be having a fun Christmas this year and it is wonderful to see the people of west Wales showing their support – when we see this kind of support and see the children here taking part it does fill me with more hope for the future.

“The town of Cardigan obviously gave us a unique opportunity and it has turned out brilliantly with everyone getting behind the idea.

“The whole event – the name change and the other things taking place throughout the day – have far surpassed all our expectations.

“I would really like to thank Cllr Davies for his efforts – he picked up this idea and ran with it.”