Kingston residents bucked the blues on the most depressing day of the year by crafting uplifting messages out of a can of Alphabetti Spaghetti.

The third Monday of January was given the gloomy title Blue Monday due to a combination of post-Christmas blues, cold dark nights and the arrival of unpaid credit card bills.

But a joint venture by community brain Robin Hutchinson and the Surrey Comet at Woody’s Bar in Kingston saw dozens of people join forces to turn the most dismal day of the year on its head.

During the challenge, competitors used edible letters to make short uplifting poems and sentence to raise some smiles.

Stefanie Eisen, 23, used the forum promote the heartening qualities of “sunshine and lollipops”, while student Josh Hayes’s blues beating advice was to smile as it “makes the day go quicker”.

But the winning entry came from Surbiton resident Steve Hill whose refrain “there is more to life than beans”, scored a narrow victory amongst the judges.

On his victory the 59-year-old said: “Remarkably Robin has managed to conjure up some blue skies and sunshine this afternoon, but even if it was not sunny outside it is sunny in here.

“We are now hoping to make this a winter Olympic event with giant spaghetti letters on mountains. As Kingston champion I would like to put my name forward.”

Homage to Fromage president Mr Hutchinson, who organised the challenge, said creating uplifting messages made of edible spaghetti was the perfect remedy for Blue Monday.

He said: “Once again I am staggered by the inventiveness and creativity of people particular the unfortunate contestant who only had Alphabetti numbers to work with, but still managed to create an uplifting sentence.

“Praise also to the Surrey Comet for being one of the major contributors to uplifting the people of Kingston, never has one paper done so much with so little.”

You can still send us your anecdotes, jokes or pictures to Clare Buchanan at cbuchanan@london.newsquest.co.uk or tweet @surreycomet using #happymonday