The brailsford lights in brentry is one of the biggest and best light trails in the city of bristol and aims to raise money for a brilliant local charity all while bringing light to the streets of bristol.
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00:00Today we're down in Brentree at Bralsford Light, one of the biggest Christmas light
00:04displays in the South West. Well, I mean, as you can see, it probably speaks for itself
00:08but it's something we've been doing now for 30 years. Christmas is a bit of a passion
00:12for me and my brother and probably all our family really, they all get involved with
00:16it. So each year we put this big display on and hopefully try and raise plenty of cash
00:20for Bristol Children's Hospital.
00:22And where did the idea start then? Because it's grown massively, hasn't it?
00:26It's grown massively. I mean, really, it just started from buying one Christmas light.
00:30That was one year and then the second year we added two more lights to it. So, you know,
00:33and then the rest is history. It just spiralled out of control without even knowing about
00:37it.
00:39The Bralsford lights in Brentree have become a massive part of Bristol's winter season
00:45for the last 30 years. It has become a full family affair. But let's find out from Lee
00:51Bralsford how long it takes to set up hundreds of lights each year.
00:57We start talking about it and thinking about it back in probably, I don't know, July when
01:01everybody's still on their holidays. We're thinking about what we're going to do new
01:04and what's going to happen different this year. And then by about October, we're starting
01:08to get the first lot of lights out, ready to start putting it up. And for seven weekends
01:12after that, we're, you know, pretty much setting up every weekend regardless of, you know,
01:17whether we've got to get that, we've got to get the display ready.
01:20How long does it take to put this all together?
01:22Well, I mean, like I said, as soon as we start getting lights out, it's literally seven weekends
01:26of like every weekend putting the lights up. But then there's lots of maintenance to do
01:29when things break down and lights need fixing. So it's a little bit more than that, you know,
01:35extra weekends on top of that as well.
01:37Why are you doing this?
01:40Like I said, we absolutely love Christmas. If it's something that can raise a bit of
01:45money for charity at the same time, then that's what we do as well. So, you know, we're going
01:48to do lights regardless. So it just so happens it can make a bit of money for, well, a lot
01:53of money for our local children's hospital.
01:55And tell me a little bit about the charity then that you're raising money for and why,
01:58why then?
01:59Yeah, I mean, we started raising money for them when my kids were little. And as you
02:03know, they've grown up a little bit now. So, but we have got nieces and nephews that are
02:06still quite, quite young. So I don't know, it's just like a big local hospital we got.
02:11There's got some, you know, phenomenal facilities local to us. We don't want to use them, but
02:15we know we've got some of the best facilities in the South West.
02:18The Grand Appeal is Bristol's children's hospital charity and they are a community
02:24of people saving the lives of sick children and supporting their families in and around
02:30the city of Bristol. In 2010, they created the sub-charity Cots for Tots to raise money
02:37for the neonatal intensive care unit at St Michael's Hospital in the city. And the Brailsford
02:42Lights have raised over £100,000 for them in the past 30 years.
02:48I mean, obviously we've been doing it for 30 years now, which is good to be going at
02:54least that long compared to, you know, some people are just starting out. It don't start
02:58off as big as what it does.