A CHURCHSTOW resident has raised more than £32,000 for Children’s Hospice South West with his Christmas Lights.

Mike Langman is the owner of the house in Churchstow, near the Church House Inn, which has been covered in brilliantly bright festive cheer for the last fifteen years.

This Christmas, people put £3,748 in the collection box when they went to see the lights and with the Christmas Euchre event Mike organises raising £409, his grand total for 2015 is £4,157 for Children’s Hospice South West. Over the last decade or more, he has raised more than £32,000 for the charity.

People come from all over the county to come and see the lights and put some money in the collection boxes. This year Mike said he had people come from Plymouth, Torquay, and Dartmouth, as well as all over the local area.

‘Coaches turn up, people stop on the way to parties or on the way home,’ and Mike even had some Australians come to see them, but he joked, ‘they were here on holiday anyway, they didn’t just come for the lights’.

‘After the first year I put them up, someone suggested I collected for a charity,’ said Mike, ‘I started collecting for CLIC Sargent for the first few years, and now all the money raised goes to the Children’s Hospice South West.’

Mike chose the charity because ‘Christmas is all about children’ and he appreciated the work they do for children with life-limiting and terminal conditions and their families.

It takes about a month to put all the lights up on the bungalow, with preparations staring on November 1. The lights are turned on for December 1, and Mike continues to work on them glowing spectacle is complete every year.

After the six weeks of Christmas are over, they’re all turned off on January 6, taken down, dried, repacked and put away, which takes another month, ready for the next year.

People donate their old lights to Mike too, which he is a dab hand at fixing up, and he welcomes them, ‘saves me buying more; even if its just a short line, it can fill a corner or a gap, I’d love more people to donate lights to me.’

Even if the lights can’t be fixed, Mike takes all the bulbs and adaptors, to use to repair others, and he generously said: ‘if anyone ever needs anything like that, I’ve got them!’

Mike’s one problem is finding someone to sponsor the additional cost of electricity he is left with over the Christmas period, adding around £125 or more to his yearly bill. If you can help him out, call him on 01548 852464.