Graham misses lighting-up of Christmas lights display after suspected heart attack

The big switch-on of a display of Christmas lights outside a house in Fordham went ahead without the man who had designed and installed them.

Everything was ready for the lighting-up at Graham Dyer’s home in Trinity Close when he was rushed into hospital with a suspected heart attack.

Taking the attitude that the show must go on, it was Graham’s wife-to-be Ann Henderson who stepped into the breach with her daughters and grandchildren to hand out mulled wine and mince pies , courtesy of Tesco Newmarket, and flick the switch.

“It would have been ironic if they’d had to send the Air Ambulance for me seeing as how that is what we were raising money for with the lights,” said Graham.

“Fortunately it was an ordinary ambulance which took me off to Addenbrooke’s Hospital where I stayed in the geriatric ward for a week because they were in dire straits and it was the only bed they had with a heart monitor.”

Having established that it was not a full-scale heart attach - such as he he had suffered 11 years ago - he was transferred to Papworth Hospital where a stent from the 2006 emergency was replaced.

Now completely recovered Graham, a former fireman who runs a takeaway food van near Caps Cases on the Studlands Park Industrial Estate, will be back in business after Christmas but plans to be at Ely’s Christmas market on Sunday.

Next year, Graham plans a bigger and better display - and has every intention of being on hand to flick the ‘on’ switch.