THE team of volunteers who work tirelessly to put on Melksham’s Christmas lights suffered a setback as their tool box was stolen whilst they worked on the town bridge.
Organiser of the Christmas light, Paul Weymouth, had his tools stolen from the Avon Tires end of the bridge whilst the team worked at the Waitrose end of the bridge on festive decorations for the town.
The incident has caused outage amongst many in Melksham who appreciate the hard work and commitment Paul and his team put in to ensure the town has the best Christmas lights display.
On Facebook Laura Louise said, “What a waste of space that person is, try and do something good and things like that happen. For every person like that in Melksham there is many more who appreciate what they are doing. I’m so excited to see the lights go up, thank you and I hope you find your tools again.”
This was echoed by Melksham resident Lecia Watts. She said, “What an absolutely disgusting and shameful person. The majority of us appreciate all of the hard work and dedication, in all weathers, to make our town the prettiest at Christmas. I am very sorry you guys are subjected to such mindless acts. Please keep up the fabulous work, and try not to let these idiots put you off.”
As news of the theft broke in the community it led to some offering use of their tools and even donations as Vic Oakman from Forest Community Centre said, “Forest Community Centre would like to donate £50 towards the replacement of Paul’s tools. He has been very helpful to us at the Community Centre.”
The response from the community pleased lights organiser Paul who said, “We only posted the incident on Facebook as it needed to be known and might help us find who took them, but a massive thank you to everyone in the community who has expressed their concern at the incident and shown their appreciation for what we do every year.
“A huge thanks to Vic and the Forest Community Centre for their kind offer of donation but we do all of this because we want to, nobody makes us, and we do lots of other stuff in the town and beyond to help others, so we can’t accept the offer.
“Thankfully as I have loads of tools, it didn’t hold up the project to get the lights ready and we will be raring to go on Saturday.”
Melksham Christmas lights get switched on this Saturday at 5.00pm after the annual Melksham Christmas Fayre.
