A SENSE of community spirit has helped make this year's Christmas lights switch-on in Gainsborough a success say organisers and council representatives.
Despite concerns about a lack of areas to decorate with the lights, staff and councillors say a real sense of community spirit pervaded, and made the event a triumph.
Gainsborough Mayor Coun Raoul Hesse-Phillipson, who turned on the lights, said t
hat, while the council wanted to hang more decorations, the evening went off without a hitch.
”There was a an extremely good crowd, certainly more than last year and it was nice to see the families there,” he said.
”It’s something I feel we should have every year for the town.”
”It’s kind how people helped out on the little things, too. It showed the community support coming back into the town again - the crowd let the choir through and some of them even moved others back to let them pass.”
However, Coun Hesse-Phillipson did concede that he would have liked for the council to have been able to decorate a greater area.
”Certainly, next year we could be looking at some improvements,” he said. ”Though it was a fresh display; in some towns I haven’t seen any lights at all.”
”There are areas where we could improve, and there’s also the fact that we can’t use lamp-posts because Highways doesn’t allow it.”
The night kicked off with the erection of fairground rides, including teacups and a large swing, before Gainsborough band ‘The Torn’ performed in the Market Place at 5.30pm.
They were immediately followed by the Salvation Army and the Parish School, who had teamed up to perform an hour of carols to onlookers.
At 7pm, the main event kicked off, as Coun Hesse-Phillipson was introduced by town crier Terry Stubbings, before counting down to the switch-on for the lights.
In a separate switch-on over at Marshall’s Yard, a similar event got underway, as Lincolnshire FM was joined by Snow White, ahead of this year’s Trinity Arts Centre panto, to switch on the centre’s lights - with a plunger ominously marked ‘Acme Detonator’.
Organiser Gary Cooke, of Gainsborough Town Council, said community spirit meant everyone was willing to pitch into the Market Place event.
”We’ve had a lot of support from town folk and the local community and they have made it a really successful event,” he said.
”We had the lorry for the fairground ride supplied by Bradshaw and members of the town council pulled together to help steward around the event.”
”From our point of view, it was a success,” he added. ”There were as many people in the marketplace as ever.”
”The band that played, The Torn, have a fairly significant local following and they’ve been at last year’s switch-on, so we knew they were quite popular.”
”The affair was very happy,” added Coun Hesse-Phillipson. ”The little youngsters that went were quite pleased with the rides, and it wasn’t just all teenagers.”
