Alnwick Christmas Lights Committee

National World

The Alnwick Christmas Lights Committee are a group of volunteers who dedicate their time from May to October to make one of the best Christmas lights displays in the country happen every year.

Transcript

00:00I'm Cam Nicholson, Chair of Annick Christmas Lights and this is our unit where we start

00:06repairs here in the beginning of May and we work through every Thursday nights from about

00:14six o'clock till nine o'clock-ish. We repair and maintain and make new displays right up

00:23until October when we start and erect the lights in Annick. We are all volunteers and we all learn

00:33and come here and do what we can, skills and whatever is needed to maintain and get all the

00:46kit up and running. We always have quite a list of people that are wanting new designs every year.

00:54We're limited to what we can do obviously, but we try and we do get through as many as we can.

01:01As I say, just as and when anybody requests anything, as long as we've got

01:07the work here from the owners of the properties and we'll then talk to whoever it is that

01:18wants a display put up. I've probably got about seven or eight at the moment. Some people want

01:24something new, some people want something changed, it just depends what comes along.

01:29We've got about 150 displays and we've got about three thousand, three and a half thousand bulbs.

01:40I guess it could, without counting them individually.

01:44And how many volunteers does it take to run all that? We've got about 20 volunteers. We've got about

01:53four new lads joined this year, which we're very grateful for, and I think there's about 20 of us

02:00now at the minute. It's very military, it's all organised, hopefully and everything goes to plan.

02:08Quite a big commitment to do this. Also come down on a Thursday night from me, every Thursday night

02:15there's a gang of us come down, repair the lights. I think we finished in

02:22September this year, last year, which was the first time we'd been finished before we started

02:26putting the lights up, but hopefully that'll be the same this year. It's just a good thing to

02:33be involved with. The guys are all getting on a bit, it's always nice to get one or two new faces

02:38and some younger ones to send up the ladder instead of sending the old ones all the time.

02:43But yeah, it's just really good fun and I wouldn't have it any other way, I really enjoy it.

02:50We're just going from strength to strength really, it's just trying to get the money forward

02:55to keep them going. I don't know how long more it'll go on, we hope it'll keep going forever, but

03:02rules and regulations are starting to creep in now, and health and safety and all this kind of

03:07thing, which makes our life a lot more difficult. We'll have to do risk assessments for everything

03:12we do and have to have the special tickets to drive the hoists and to use the hoists,

03:17which we're on access again, do that for us free of charge. If they have a class of people coming

03:25in and there might be a couple of spaces spared, they'll phone us up and ask if we want to do

03:29the ticket again, because it can cost £300 to £400 for that, so everything works quite well.

03:34But yeah, you know, as long as everybody's happy with the lights, we'll keep doing it.

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