A HOUSEHOLD in Bere Alston is lighting up the street this festive period using more than 5,000 lights for an elaborate Christmas display.

John and Tracy Phillips have been decorating their house in Pounds Park Road every year since they moved in more than three years ago. The tradition started when they lived in Plympton and John carried on adorning their new house with light-up displays after they moved.

John usually puts up the display to raise money for charity and has in the past raised as much as £300 which he donated to the baby care unit at Derriford Hospital.

This year, however, despite using 5,000 lights, 43 plugs and more than 50 metres of cable, John isn’t raising money for charity as he felt the display wasn’t quite up to his usual standard.

John, who is a cleaner at Derriford Hospital, said: ‘There are about three houses in our street that do Christmas lights but our’s is always the biggest. We usually put them up in early November, depending on the weather and my days off from work. It took me about two weeks to put them up and I have just added some more. I’ve still got more lights up in the loft, but you can overdo it and ruin it.’

John’s display consists of reindeers, Father Christmas, many lights and other festive luminous objects. The lights he uses have been accumulated over many years and he said that more than half of his loft is usually filled with Christmas lights.

He has positioned most of the display in his back garden, due to safety issues with a driveway at the front of his house.

‘I don’t like ladders,’ he said. ‘So I’ll do anything I can to avoid using them. I usually hang string out of the bedroom windows, tie the lights to them, then pull them up from the window.

‘Our neighbours love it. The couple opposite us have grandchildren and they get excited to see our lights every time they visit.’

Despite not raising money for charity this year, John has entered a competition for the best household Christmas lights display, in which the winner receives £1,000 worth of prizes — mainly toys. He said if he won, he would donate it all to the children’s wards at Derriford Hospital.

Pictures by James Bird