Alnwick Christmas Lights Installation

Last weekend, our Operations Manager, Paul Marshall, generously dedicated his Sunday to support the volunteers of the Alnwick Christmas Lights Committee with their annual installation of thousands of lights and decorations, helping to make Alnwick sparkle once again this festive season.

“A typical Sunday morning for many is to relax, maybe have a lie in, sit and read the paper as the day moves from morning into lunchtime or simply do nothing! Well, for the dedicated volunteers of the Alnwick Christmas Lights Committee this certainly isn’t the case.

The team are there for 8am to start collating the lights to hang in various parts of the town. Unrolling hundreds of metres of string lights to dress everything from shop fronts to trees and monuments.

I was lucky enough to join them for a day to see what it takes to be part of this remarkable team. It takes thousands of hours for the volunteer force to prepare, test and erect all of the various displays over several weekends leading up to the ‘switch on’ in November.

We work through the day, stopping only for the customary bacon sandwich and cup of tea, donated by the lovely staff of the White Swan Hotel. As the light begins to fade the days work is done, but fear not, the team will be there again next weekend to complete their final installations and testing before the big day arrives.

I was made to feel so very welcome and only now understand how much time and effort it takes to create such an amazing result for Alnwick Town Centre.

The word ‘community’ is often lost in the modern world but it definitely isn’t with the volunteers in Alnwick. I take my hard hat off to every single one of them and look forward to being back there again next year as a volunteer myself”