<P> "Walking in the Air" is a song written by Howard Blake for the 1982 animated film of Raymond Briggs' 1978 children's book The Snowman . The song forms the centrepiece of The Snowman, which has become a seasonal favorite on British and Finnish television . The story relates the fleeting adventures of a young boy and a snowman who has come to life . In the second part of the story, the boy and the snowman fly to the North Pole . "Walking in the Air" is the theme for the journey . They attend a party of snowmen, at which the boy seems to be the only human until they meet Father Christmas with his reindeer, and the boy is given a scarf with a snowman pattern . In the film, the song was performed by St Paul's Cathedral choirboy Peter Auty, and reissued in 1985 (on Stiff Records) and 1987 . </P> <P> In 1985, an altered version was recorded for use in a TV advertising campaign for Toys "R" Us . As Auty's voice had then broken, Blake recommended the Welsh chorister Aled Jones, whose recording reached number five in the UK pop charts, and who became a popular celebrity on the strength of his performance . The association of the song with Jones, combined with the fact that Auty was not credited on The Snowman, would lead to a common misbelief that Jones performed the song in the film . "Walking in the Air" has subsequently been covered by over forty artists, in a variety of styles . </P>

Who sings were walking in the air in the snowman