On 23 December 1975, Rob Parsons and his wife Dianne were preparing for Christmas at their Cardiff home when they heard a knock at the door. On their doorstep stood a man with a bin bag containing his possessions in his right hand and a frozen chicken in his left. Rob studied the man's face and vaguely remembered him as Ronnie Lockwood, someone he would occasionally see at Sunday School as a boy and who he was told to be kind to as he was a "bit different".
"I said 'Ronnie, what's with the chicken?' He said 'somebody gave it to me for Christmas'. And then I said two words that changed all of our lives.
"And I'm not exactly sure why I said them. I said come in." Aged just 27 and 26 years old at the time, the couple felt compelled to take Ronnie, who was autistic, under their wing. They cooked his chicken, let him bathe and agreed to let him stay for Christmas.
What began as an act of compassion turned into an unique companionship of love and compromise that lasted 45 years, until the day Ronnie died.
