Hundreds queue for the Coca Cola Truck as it arrives at Meadowhall tonight

Visitors queued patiently in the chilly Sheffield night to get into the site, see Father Christmas and get a drink at the well known vehicle which has become a festive favourite among the public.

The truck was parked up in the Orange car park near the Oasis cinema at the shopping centre.

Among those visiting was Alison Gallop, in her Coca Cola jumper, which had been a present from her husband. She said she had visited the truck every year since she moved to his part of the world. She said: “I don’t like the drink to be honest, but I absolutely love the Coca Cola truck adverts.”

Ian Morton and Zoe Ward, from Kelham Island, said they had come down because it was the start of the festive season. Zoe said: “You see the Coca Cola truck and you start feeling Christmassy.” Ian said: “It’s not Christmas without that truck, is it?”

Catherine and Tim Watkins had come with children Buddy and Oliver. Catherine said: “We try to come down every year when they move them around to get the boys into the Christmas spirit a little bit and start Christmas off. Weve grown up with the Christmas truck on TV so we always try to come down and see them.”

Catherine Edgar said that her children Lucy and Olly had seen the truck on the television. She said: “It’s quite an nice experence to come and see it in person and it was a nice suprise for them to come and see it in person. We’ve had a super time, haven’t we? It was really nice to see it and we saw Santa as well, didn’t we?”

Cheryl Moore saw the truck with youngsters Gabriel Martin and Jessie Barnett. She said: “They get really excited about it and they had seen it on the television, so it is so nice to actually see it in real life. It feels like Chistmas now, and they gave us a Coke while we were visiting it.”