Brailsford Lights: How Christmas lights have raised over 100,000 for sick children

National World - LocalTV

The brailsford lights in brentry is one of the biggest and best light trails in the city of bristol and aims to raise money for a brilliant local charity all while bringing light to the streets of bristol.

Transcript

00:00Today we're down in Brentree at Bralsford Light, one of the biggest Christmas light

00:04displays in the South West. Well, I mean, as you can see, it probably speaks for itself

00:08but it's something we've been doing now for 30 years. Christmas is a bit of a passion

00:12for me and my brother and probably all our family really, they all get involved with

00:16it. So each year we put this big display on and hopefully try and raise plenty of cash

00:20for Bristol Children's Hospital.

00:22And where did the idea start then? Because it's grown massively, hasn't it?

00:26It's grown massively. I mean, really, it just started from buying one Christmas light.

00:30That was one year and then the second year we added two more lights to it. So, you know,

00:33and then the rest is history. It just spiralled out of control without even knowing about

00:37it.

00:39The Bralsford lights in Brentree have become a massive part of Bristol's winter season

00:45for the last 30 years. It has become a full family affair. But let's find out from Lee

00:51Bralsford how long it takes to set up hundreds of lights each year.

00:57We start talking about it and thinking about it back in probably, I don't know, July when

01:01everybody's still on their holidays. We're thinking about what we're going to do new

01:04and what's going to happen different this year. And then by about October, we're starting

01:08to get the first lot of lights out, ready to start putting it up. And for seven weekends

01:12after that, we're, you know, pretty much setting up every weekend regardless of, you know,

01:17whether we've got to get that, we've got to get the display ready.

01:20How long does it take to put this all together?

01:22Well, I mean, like I said, as soon as we start getting lights out, it's literally seven weekends

01:26of like every weekend putting the lights up. But then there's lots of maintenance to do

01:29when things break down and lights need fixing. So it's a little bit more than that, you know,

01:35extra weekends on top of that as well.

01:37Why are you doing this?

01:40Like I said, we absolutely love Christmas. If it's something that can raise a bit of

01:45money for charity at the same time, then that's what we do as well. So, you know, we're going

01:48to do lights regardless. So it just so happens it can make a bit of money for, well, a lot

01:53of money for our local children's hospital.

01:55And tell me a little bit about the charity then that you're raising money for and why,

01:58why then?

01:59Yeah, I mean, we started raising money for them when my kids were little. And as you

02:03know, they've grown up a little bit now. So, but we have got nieces and nephews that are

02:06still quite, quite young. So I don't know, it's just like a big local hospital we got.

02:11There's got some, you know, phenomenal facilities local to us. We don't want to use them, but

02:15we know we've got some of the best facilities in the South West.

02:18The Grand Appeal is Bristol's children's hospital charity and they are a community

02:24of people saving the lives of sick children and supporting their families in and around

02:30the city of Bristol. In 2010, they created the sub-charity Cots for Tots to raise money

02:37for the neonatal intensive care unit at St Michael's Hospital in the city. And the Brailsford

02:42Lights have raised over £100,000 for them in the past 30 years.

02:48I mean, obviously we've been doing it for 30 years now, which is good to be going at

02:54least that long compared to, you know, some people are just starting out. It don't start

02:58off as big as what it does.

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