Expats welcome homeless men into their flat for Christmas

A PAIR of generous expats have given two homeless men the present of their dreams: a home for Christmas.

Secret Santas Barcley Spicer Jenkins and Ed Lloyd, both 21 and English, have handed over the key to their home for two festive weeks.

The Brits, who share a rented flat in Estepona, made the charitable offer after becoming firm friends with the homeless pair from the Czech Republic this winter.

They have now given up their beds, kitchen, bathroom and the remaining contents of their fridge until they return from the UK in the new year.

Petr Spanel, 27, and Roman Sikyta, 38, said the good Samaritan Brits ‘have made our Christmas’.

The pair had fallen onto hard times after walking the near-3,000km journey from their home town Pilsen to the Costa del Sol.

After arriving this year with plans to find work they were mugged in Fuengirola, losing most of their possessions and money.

Since then they have been living in a tent on the beach in Estepona, building sand castles to earn money for food.

“We travelled across Spain and had an amazing adventure, but now it is getting very cold at night and we are getting hardly any money from tourists,” explained Petr, a former builder.

With winter underway and seafront tourists a distant memory, hot food and a good night’s sleep became almost unobtainable.

That is, until their selfless expat pals, first offered them dinner and a sofa to sleep on, one particularly stormy night.

“We did it because it seemed crazy not to, they’re really nice guys,” explained Barcley, an intern at website Andalucia.com.

“When I woke up the next day they were already on the beach building an even bigger castle so we could see it from our balcony,” he added.

Since then they have been regularly welcomed over for meals, to wash clothes, shower and sleep.

The British pair even allowed them use of their laptops so they could catch up with friends and family back home.

“They are not the alcoholics people assume they are, they are hard-working and great fun,” said Barcley.

To thank them for their kindness, the two Czechs last week cooked their benefactors a slap-up Czechoslovakian feast, with a typical salad, pork escalopes and apple strudel for pudding.