A couple who raise thousands for charity by illuminating their house over Christmas have come up with a unique way of ensuring donations don't get stolen - a cable car.

Four years ago the donation box outside the house in Walsingham Gardens, Stoneleigh, which was full of cash for the Royal Marsden cancer charity, was stolen.

So Deborah and Harvey Preston have installed a mini cable car that whizzes donations up to the roof and drops them down a tube into the garage where they are safe.

And while some town centre lights have been switched on by nobodies in Santa suits the Prestons had TV personality Lionel Blair to help switch on their lights, watched by a crowd of hundreds.

Mrs Preston said it was very exciting to have Blair in her kitchen after he spoke in front of hundreds of people who filled the road to watch the lights turn on.

She said: "Lionel Blair was just saying he couldn’t believe what we had done and it was great that normal people could that."

Mrs Preston explained that they have decorated their home each Christmas since her husband’s best friend Robert Hibbin, 37, died from bone cancer nine years ago.

Since his death the couple have raised more than £20,000 for Royal Marsden through the light show.

After just the first week of the illuminations this year the Prestons had already raised more than £1,500.

Mrs Preston said Mr Hibbin was a "Stoneleigh boy" and his parents still come to look at the lights and decorations each year.

She said: "It’s their way of keeping him alive."

The couple spend £400 in electricity bills alone to light up the house over Christmas as the decorations have got more and more extravagant over the years.

She said: "My house is a castle at the moment.

"It’s really, really lovely and all the kids love it."

She said in one sense it felt wrong to enjoy the Christmas lights while others lay dying, but she also knew the money was helping cancer patients.

She said: "In some ways I feel guilty that we do it, but in some ways I feel proud."

See the Christmas lights and make a donation at 12 Walsingham Gardens, Stoneleigh.

The lights will remain up until the weekend of Jan 5.