THREE kind-hearted couples who festoon their homes with Christmas lights each year to raise charity cash have beaten their previous fundraising record.
Thousands of people visited Robin Royd Avenue in Mirfield over Christmas and the new year to see the display stretching across three houses and which has raised £3,256.
The money has been given to Kirkwood Hospice and trounces last year's total of £2,550 - also for the Dalton hospice.
But the friends never rest on their laurels. They are already planning that next Christmas's display will be even bigger and better.
Christmas 2007 will be the fifth year they have put on the display.
The lights are put up on the homes of Derek and Joy Highe, Bob and Margaret Swailes and David and Tracy Green.
Derek said: "We would all like to thank everyone who has come to see the lights for their generosity.
"It makes all the hard work worthwhile.
"People turned up every night and most donated money to our very worthwhile cause.
"The fact that there were so many pounds and 50p pieces shows just how many people came.
"We are already thinking ahead to the next displays and have been contacted by big companies wanting to get involved," he added.
The 20,000 lights took Derek, Bob, David and another neighbour, Steve Bell, five weekends to put up.
Most have now been taken down, but wind and rain have delayed removing the lights off the roofs.
The lights were switched on at the start of December to the backdrop of a dramatic fireworks display given by Mirfield garden centre Whiteley's.
Skelmanthorpe Brass Band played festive tunes.
Derek and his co-organisers now have their own lights website. It can be found at www.robinroyd-xmas-lights.co.uk
