JIMMY SAVILLE didn't manage to fix it for Donna Paton - but more than 25 years later, her dream has finally come true.

Donna, a team leader at Caerphilly council's Risca child care service, wrote to the BBC show as a child, asking for a riding lesson from Olympic medal-winning show-jumper David Broome.

She never got an answer - but when Donna announced she was leaving the child care team, her colleagues fixed it for her to meet David and ride with his son Matthew.

Mother-of-two Donna, 37, saddled up one of the Broome's horses, Dutch, yesterday at the Wales and West Show at the Broome's in Crick, Caldicot.

She said: "I wrote to Jim'll Fix It when I was nine or ten, and I asked to have a riding lesson with David Broome and for my brother to have a ride in a Sherman tank, but I never got a reply.

"Because I'm leaving the team they set this up as a surprise leaving present. We were at Chepstow Market this morning. My husband wanted to go and I wasn't keen, then my mother rang and I said I would.

"We were meant to be looking for a new car then we called in here, and when my husband mentioned David Broome I put two and two together. David's name was one we used to see on TV all the time. I mentioned that I'd written this letter to the team and they were saying 'You never know, we might get you on that Ant and Dec show', and I said 'Yeah, yeah'.

"It was my leaving do on Friday night, so it's a good job this wasn't arranged for Saturday because I had a terrible hangover.

"We used to have ponies which we've recently sold. I was a bit nervous about getting on a big horse like that but it was a fabulous idea."

Donna, of Energlyn, Caerphilly, was given a lesson by David's son, 21-year-old Matthew Broome, who is a member of the British Young Riders Team and has won two European team gold medals.

David told the Argus: "I feel sorry for her because it's all come true about 25 year late - things have changed a bit.

"But at the end of the day she seems to be happy with it anyway."

* In the picture: Donna Paton, left, with David Broome and his son Matthew.