Leighton Buzzard family's Halloween House raises £2k for Great Ormond Street Hospital as thank you for helping son with rare condition

Over 500 people flocked to Wallis Drive to trick or treat with plenty of witches, ghouls and ghostly goings on thanks to one family's fang-tastic display.

The Halloween House – complete with a graveyard and scare tunnel – was created by Dan Plummer, his wife Jo, and their friend Simon McKean, who were raising money for GOSH as a thank you for all the "support and expertise" it has given to Dan, Jo and their three-year-old son, Finley.

Dan, 34, said: "Finley has a condition called Craniosynostosis. Craniosynostosis is a rare condition where a baby's skull does not grow properly, and their head becomes an unusual shape.

"It's usually treated with surgery to allow room for the brain to continue to grow, but research is continually undergoing to determine the best method of treatment.

"Thankfully, in Finn’s case, no surgery is required. However, monitoring and research will continue into his adult life. Many people wouldn't know to look at him and he is a happy little three-year-old who has a normal life just like his twin brother.

"We would like to thank everyone that visited on the evening and supported us by raising an incredible amount of money for such an important charity."

The family have been running the display since 2018 (at their previous house in Linslade) and raising money for charity for two years.

It was Dan who first thought of the ghoulishly good idea to decorate their house – and was inspired to create their year's walk-through tunnel by the haunted houses at Universal Studios, Florida.

Describing the family's display, Dan said: "The entire front of our house was a 'skeleton breakout' area with multiple skeletons climbing the house, a skeleton puking toxic waste, and finished off with a large 7ft by 7ft skeleton breaking out of the ground.

"The back of the house had a cemetery scene with lots of gravestones, witches, ghouls, cauldrons and the grim reaper himself.

"The main event was what we have called 'the tunnel'. This was a large, enclosed walkthrough with three themed sections - pumpkin patch, spider lair, and crazy circus.

"Within the tunnel there were lots of animatronics, decorations, props and scare actors.

"We also had eight smoke machines, strobe lighting and other effects deployed all around the property and tunnel."

The decorations started going up a week before Halloween and Finley, along with his twin, helped to set up the cemetery scene.

Their favourite spooky characters are the witches and the skeletons.

Dan said: "This year was an even bigger success, which we didn't think would be possible. We had some fantastic comments from local residents on our Facebook group, many comments saying it was 'the highlight of our Halloween'.

"We are extremely grateful to the volunteers and scare actors, Chris Barker, Jake Kirby, Alice Kirby and Beth McDowell, to our neighbours who support our shenanigans, and our photographer, Ashley Morton.

"We never expected to raise nearly £800 last year with a target of £250, so to raise now £2,000 this year is truly incredible."

Dan has created a blog to document the Halloween House and a JustGiving page for GOSH.