Local funeral director leads townwide easter egg hunt

Anthony Barton has been hiding easter eggs across Mossley in the lead up to Easter Sunday.

Anthony Barton Independent Family Funeral Service have recently been creating a stir in Mossley and the dedicated Facebook groups. This is thanks to new initiatives he is bringing to the town, such as the letters to heaven post box. The ideas have gained him many responses online and brought happiness to many.

But it is his new initiative that may be the grandest yet – and involves many hundreds of eggs. We spoke with Anthony to find out more about his latest scheme. “I wanted to do something to involve the kids around the community and make them know that the funeral directors are not morbid. I saw that Mossley Foodbank were asking for easter eggs, so I thought there must be some children waking up without easter eggs on Sunday. That’s why I did it really, just to give children the opportunity to have an egg and so they can have fun leading up to easter.”

Anthony has been busy since the 18th March hiding the eggs all across the town, and has hidden an extraordinary amount in both top and bottom Mossley.

Anthony continued, saying “I planted 450 plastic eggs which was about 70 a day at night. I did the whole of Mossley and hopefully covered every road. Serephina and Nice to be Nice charity donated eggs towards it, and I sourced about 80% of them. People were even asking me if I could plant some on their street as they couldn’t get out and people have asked me for easter eggs with no chocolate in, so at the moment I have given out 420 actual easter eggs. Last night I put a post on the Real Mossley saying if you can’t get out I will deliver them as they all deserve one.”

With the scheme having been so successful and having created a stir in the town, it is no surprise that the kindness Anthony has brought has been received very well by the public.

“The response has been so positive with people saying thank you,” Anthony said, “so it is nice really from the point of view of knowing that the kids will have an egg. Being able to see the faces is great, it is great as they come in and their faces light up when they come in and get given an egg and a lolly. I need to think about what I do next! But at the end of the day I am just glad that 400 plus kids have an easter egg. There are only 29 eggs left now!”

Once the last eggs are found, that will conclude the easter egg hunt and will be the last of the 400 plus easter eggs that Anthony has given out.