Eyal Booker shows his love for Camp Simcha

When the doctors in the lift started nudging each other and whispering, Camp Simcha knew they had the right celebrity for the job, and not for the first time.

In previous years the charity’s annual Toy Drive has been treated to appearances from personalities such as Vanessa Feltz and Tania Bryer and last year none other than Emma Bunton aka Baby Spice happily handed out gifts to the children at Barnet Hospital.

But after a summer spent entertaining the nation and encouraging us to buy personalised water bottles, none other than Love Island star Eyal Booker was ready to meet young patients on behalf of Camp Simcha at the Royal Free in Hampstead on Monday.

Arriving by scooter and retaining his beach glow, the former JFS pupil caused much excitement en route to the children’s ward with Minnie and Mickey Mouse, mostly among medics in white coats who wanted to know what Eyal had been doing since he left Majorca.

“It has been one thing after another,” he said, after discovering that the celebrity acquired on Love Island is there for the taking, should one wish to do so. Having agreed to turn on the Christmas lights in a small Scottish village, Eyal hotfooted it back to London to volunteer for Camp Simcha’s Toy Drive and help give out some of the 9,000 toys donated by Jewish schools.

Packed by a further 87 volunteers last Sunday, the gifts will be given out to children in more than 100 hospital wards and hospices across the capital.

“It is a pleasure to be able to do something like this as a result of Love Island,”said Eyal. “I am frankly a bit surprised and totally chuffed that people want to have a photo taken with me.”

And many did, among them the mothers of young patients and patients old enough to have been allowed to watch the ITV reality show who were delighted to hear about the upcoming Love Island reunion scheduled for December 17 and after that Eyal Booker joins the loyal Love Islander Georgia Steel on a ranch in Arizona in the series Celebs on the Ranch. None of this was of any interest to 18 month old patient Mollie, but she took a shine to Eyal as we all did this summer.