Festive hangover for bemused townsfolk (From Gazette & Herald)

Festive hangover for bemused townsfolk

HAS Christmas come early this year - or is it the longest-lasting Yuletide on record?

These are the questions troubling people in two North Yorkshire market towns, whose Christmas lights are still adorning the streets, seven weeks after Twelfth Night.

A number of people have contacted the Evening Press to air their frustrations about Malton and Norton's illuminations still being up.

Following the retirement of two men who had traditionally put up the lights, Stuart Collins, of Coltrec Electrical Services, Norton, volunteered to organise a team to put up the two towns' decorations without charge.

Mr Collins said: "There were a number of health and safety issues that we had to address before we could start taking the lights down. They have been resolved now and I plan to start soon. It'll take my team a couple of weekends to do."

Mr Collins pointed out that the bill for labour, fuel, and equipment for taking the illuminations down was footed solely by himself.

The Evening Press understands that some residents have left unpleasant messages for Mr Collins about the lights being left up for so long.

He said: "If anyone would like to volunteer to help take them down, they're welcome. We took out an advert for volunteers last year and only one person turned up."

Peter Mudge, town centre manager, said putting up the lights up was a "thankless task."

He said: "Most towns get the district council to put them up and take them down. We have no support like that; therefore it's a situation which the people of the town manage to resolve. They bring Christmas to the town. It's been phenomenal, thanks to Stuart Collins and Ian Beecham."

One correspondent on the lights, Richard Leigh Perkins, of Lastingham, wrote: "January 6, Twelfth Night, is the recognised day when at least domestically we take down the decorations. I wonder what dreadful fate has fallen to the authority who still, by 55th night, have these stale and tatty symbols littering the town?

"Could it perhaps be some misguided official, fresh from a seminar on regional economics, hoping to leave them up for Christmas 2005?"

Updated: 10:43 Thursday, February 24, 2005