A joiner in Irlam has used his handiwork to turn his home street into a Christmas-lit wonderland, with the help of some famous Disney characters.
Howard Wellock, 37, started making cut-outs of the famous cartoons last year to hang on the Marlborough Road property at the request of his partner’s six-year-old Frozen-obsessed son Harley.
He was so overwhelmed with the response from passers-by that this year he decided to try extending the scenes to his neighbours’ homes.
The cardboard toons include classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck all the way up to recent stars such as Else from Frozen and BayMax, the inflatable robot from Big Hero 6.
Howard has been a local joiner since leaving school, and has now moved into general building contract work. He said he took inspiration from one of his firm’s most recent jobs, a new early years play area for Irlam Primary School.
His partner Claire Bardsley, a local childminder, said: “Our neighbours were very co-operative and grateful for Howard putting in the time and effort – they all have children and grandchildren so understood what we were trying to do.”
“The amount of people knocking on my door and driving past has been amazing, we both love the fact we are making adults and children smile and giving them that Christmas ‘wow’ factor.”
Each scene was made by ‘upcycling’ up old plywood and paints from Howard’s previous joinery jobs, so it came at no cost.
Claire added: “When we put the display up we went out to take pictures, neighbours across the road came out to say how amazing it looked and how lovely it was to see Howard hard at work and doing something nice for our community.
“At one point we had four lots of neighbours stood with us and we both said how nice that felt as this wouldn’t usually happen and we had a sense of the community coming together.
“Howard put a lot of time and effort into this but he wouldn’t have it any other way. He likes to see people happy and likes to see people’s reactions.”
