Britain’s ‘oldest Christmas lights’ fail for first time in 54 years
A pair of Christmas lights bought for just £3 in 1969 have finally given up, after lighting a family’s tree for 54 years.
Vina Shaddick bought the festive lights from Woolworths and had never once replaced a bulb on them.
After she passed away six years ago, her son Ross-Farr-Semmems, 45, began using them to decorate his tree, but this year, they finally gave up.
The first sign of trouble was last Christmas when he had to replace the first bulb on the string – but he fears the replacement ‘disrupted the circuit’, causing another six to blow.
The music teacher from Plymouth, Devon, said they’ve been carefully wrapped in a box since for fear of further damaging the family heirloom.
He said: ‘It is very, very sad they are not up this year and it is the first year they haven’t been on display. It just felt they would be going on forever and it feels like the end of an era.’
Ross had been able to give the tree one more year thanks to a kind woman in St Austell who sent him a few old bulbs.
‘I found one that I thought might match the original and put it in. But when I put it in it shone a lot brighter than the others. I thought ‘this is not good’ and before I knew it another six had gone out,’ he said.
‘It must have put more stress on the rest of the circuit so I turned them off and left them. I daren’t do anything with them anymore.
‘They are now in a box and I have bought myself new bulbs that match the originals. I am trying to be brave enough to see if they work – but I am not holding my breath. I just feel if one is playing up it changes everything for all of them.’
If he’s able to repair the lights next Christmas, he hopes to put them on display again and make them last until the 60th anniversary of his mum’s £3 purchase in Woolworth’s.
‘I will definitely keep them – my mum is no longer with us and she did buy them in 1969. I am not into hoarding but like to keep a few little things – and they will definitely go in my box of little things to remind me of mum.
‘It is not just all those Christmases – it is also the exciting journey we have had. Finding out everyone was interested in our old little lights and being in the papers every year.
‘It was exciting. To have them come on when I met my now wife Ruth and when the boys came along.
‘Three generations of us have now enjoyed those lights and they are definitely staying in the box – to remind us of all of that. It was always going to end at some point and we may well have reached that point.’
Ross shares two young children with his wife Ruth, and the toddlers love to ‘grab and break everything’ – so he had already been thinking of different ways to display the old lights.
Ross said although he is a fan of all Christmas decorations – he said it would be almost impossible to replace those lights.
He added: ‘I don’t think we’ll ever reproduce that quality of lights. They were just a different quality from a different age.’
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