With the big day just days away, a choir of patients and their families, hospice staff and volunteers, are the unlikely frontrunners for this year’s Christmas number one.

The London Hospices Choir leads the way at the top of the Official Charts top 40, with their cover of Mike and the Mechanics’ 1991 hit The Living Years.

From November: London Hospices Choir including singers from Demelza in Eltham and Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice aiming for Christmas miracle to reach number one

The choir, which features 27 singers from Demelza Hospice Care for Children in Eltham, 11 from Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice, and hundreds more from 16 other hospices across the capital, are among bookmakers’ favourites to still be on top of the charts on December 23.

The choir also features singers from the Princess Alice Hospice in Esher and St Raphael’s Hospice in Cheam

Clean Bandit’s Rockabye, Human by Rag N Bone Man, You Can’t Always Get What You Want by Friends of Jo Cox, and Liv ‘N’ G’s Our Superheroes (A Christmas Wish), are the only artists ahead of the choir in Oddschecker’s compiled list of bookmaker’s odds.

Figures released by the Official Charts Company indicate the London Hospices Choir lead Rag N Bone Man by just 600 copies.

Clare Cook and James Hawkins, the team behind the choir’s single, said in a joint statement: "We had been very inspired by the NHS Choir and their campaign last year and felt that the work of the hospices - who rely heavily on funding - was something that everyone, young or old would want to support.

“About 30% of people dying in the UK receive help at some stage from hospices. That's pretty incredible.”

News Shopper:
The Demelza Hospice Care Choir

The cut-off point for sales and streams to be counted towards the chart is midnight on Thursday, December 22.

The Christmas Official Chart Top 40 will be counted down on The Official Chart on BBC Radio 1, on Friday, December 23 from 4pm.

The full Top 100 will be published on the Official Charts Company’s website at 5.45pm.

All the profits raised from the sale of the single will be divided between the 18 hospices involved.