Cark Christmas lights 'will take until June to untangle'

With the arrival of Twelfth Night, Christmas decorations are coming down, but for one man the job will take a little longer.

Jeremy Voakes, who decorates his Cumbrian house for charity, aims to have his light show boxed by Easter but says the mammoth task usually ends "sometime in June".

His display at Cark-in-Cartmel has raised more than £30,000 for the NSPCC.

Mr Voakes admitted: "Someone jokingly said we'd created a monster."

Twenty years ago, Mr Voakes and his wife Mandy began a small Christmas display by putting some lights on scaffolding during building works.

Known locally as the "Cark Illuminations", it is now estimated to include about 150,000 light bulbs.

"The location of the house really lends itself to a display as we're about halfway up a hill," Mr Voakes said. "Thousands of people drive up the lane to take a look.

"It's always a fun thing to do, but even more so after the year everyone has had.

"It's too much work for one person so Mandy helps untangling everything and with the ladders."

Their children, Jessica and David, also get "roped in".

"It's sad to see them go when I finally start putting them away," Mr Voakes said.

"We get them down as quick as we can to protect them from the weather. That takes about a month, then we'll start packing them away.

"I always aim to get that done by Easter, but it usually ends up sometime in June.

"We've got a double-storey garage that's never seen a car so the bottom is a workshop where I keep some of the bigger decorations and the rest are in boxes on the upper part.

"I normally start putting them back up in October so it's an almost year-round job."

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