Historical Factoids 2:

[Mal]

Starting when Adam was a lad and Wansbeck District Council held sway, I’m thinking about 1996, Bedlington was awarded Worst Christmas Lighting Display in the North East by Metro Radio.

If I remember rightly there were 4 second-hand displays up on lighting posts outside the old Council Offices and one of them was faulty!

Determined to put this right a Bedlington Christmas Lighting Group was formed from lady members of the then Bedlington Chamber of Trade.

WDC at the time set aside £10K for lighting displays within its boundary with £5K going to Ashington and 2½ K each to Bedlington and Newbiggin. I couldn’t see two pound fifty never mind two and a half thousand in what we had that year!

Anyway the group started fundraising, holding events and generally doing anything they could to get sponsorship for new lighting displays. Every member of the Chamber of Trade pulled their weight and did whatever they could.

I was part of a team who asked WDC to give Bedlington the £5K seeing as we were the only town actively trying to help out with funding for new displays. A deal was struck whereby the Town that raised the most money would get the lion’s share (£5K) of the WDC pot. Sounds OK!

By the autumn, when lighting displays had to be ordered and delivered, the totals came in from the towns. Ashington had raised, pretty sure it was £300, Newbiggin ignored it and instead went their own way and Bedlington had raised……..£13,000!

WDC reneged on the deal and said the £5K would still be going to Ashington?

That Christmas we hit most of the lamps posts in Front street with new displays, a Christmas tree with new lights and even a lighted banner across the road, 13 grands worth! BTW, we even had to pay to get them put up and taken down and new sockets on the lampposts so they could be plugged in. Funnily enough the Council paid that fitting charge and it always came out at £2½ K, irrespective of the actual number of units to be fitted!

The next year and again after a hectic round of fundraising by the Christmas Light Group we had enough in the kitty to do all of Front Street, top to bottom, and started to think about going down Glebe Road and Hartford Bank.

By now the fantastic success and support we had off the whole Bedlington Community was being noticed and we were told there wouldn’t be any more displays going up! Ehhh?

I remember saying at a meeting we had with WDC at the time, “Instead of recognising the support the community have given and the hard work and dedication of the Lights Group you really want to kybosh the whole initiative, why not celebrate it?”

We ignored them and just started another year of fund raising.

We noticed lighting displays we had bought were being put up in Ashington so I questioned that without ever getting an answer, but I saw them for myself!

WDC then sent the Lights Group a bill for several thousand pounds for…….electricity, saying they had so many days to pay or they would be taken to court! That obviously frightened the lasses and they asked me to go with them to see the Chief Executive of WDC who had ordered them to attend a meeting. We even took a local Minister along for a witness!

They guy was playing hardball and wouldn’t listen to any pleas or suggestions from the Lights Group and finally said he would be taking them to court for an unpaid bill.

I told him great because I will be included because all the Lights Group were Chamber of Trade members and I was the chair and I will be countersuing you bonny lad for defrauding the people of Bedlington, because every penny we raised was for Bedlington Christmas lights and you have appropriated them and used them elsewhere. Not only that I will be suing for compensation for distress about the electrical bill you have sent. I knew there was no meterage on lighting columns the council agreed likely usage every year and agreed a financial amount with the power company, there was no way they could justify the money they demanded! If I remember rightly the Minister pulled us apart!

Shortly after that the Lighting Group were asked how much money they had in their account and after saying how much there was received a bill for exactly that amount. They paid and said the whole debacle had left a bad taste in their mouths so they would fold the Group.

The press got hold of the story and ran it with the banner, something like.…………

Local Council plays Scrooge with the Fairy Godmothers of Bedlington.