VIDEO: Sleaford mum keeps her street’s spirits up with entertainment during lockdown

Kylie has recruited her whole family to help brighten up the lives of householders on George Street in the town and dispel the gloom of social distancing measures.

The self-employed mobile hairdresser has been at home unable to work since a couple of days before the official lockdown along with the rest of the family and has come up with ideas such as dancing in the street, chocolate bingo and even a quiz for all ages to break the boredom.

She said: “It has cheered everybody up a bit. I have lived on the street for 12 years and thought it would be nice to see everyone’s faces as the kids are getting fed up and there are quite a lot of families here.

“Instead of the children stuck in front of their computers it gets them out for half an hour for fresh air.”

She explained: “First off I put some music on outside and people came onto their doorsteps so we got them dancing to the Macarena. Then another evening we had them doing the Cha-Cha Slide and the latest one was The Vengaboys when we got a sound system outside instead of small speakers so everybody could hear and came out.”

On Saturday afternoon she used her daily exercise to post bingo cards through everyone’s doors ready for a bingo session on Sunday for chocolate easter prizes for the children.

Kylie said: “I bought a megaphone and shouted the numbers out.”

There was another dance on Monday night and she plans to arrange a Mexican wave down the whole street and a quiz.

For a bit of extra fun, she has been doing comedy via her facebook page, including buying cheap bendy glow sticks and sticking them all over her two young daughters and filming them live on Facebook dancing to rave music while glowing in the dark.

She laughs: “It took us two rolls of tape to stick all their glow sticks on as they kept dropping off!”

Kylie’s street dancing craze is catching on with friends in other parts of the country and there was another mass dance in Scorer Street in Lincoln as a result.

She said: “If people keep sharing the videos of our events it gets more families doing it in their streets and cheering each other up instead of being stuck indoors.”

She admitted she was waiting until June to get any more income but accepted that everyone was in the same situation. “It’s about keeping our spirits up. After each event people stand on their drives safely having a chat to each other and hopefully the community spirit will continue and people will help each other out and not go back to ignoring each other,” she said optimistically.

“We may do a street karaoke or a big sing. We are getting requests from people up the street for other songs to play too.”

Kylie also took over running the Lincolnshire Rucksack Project three years ago when the man previously coordinating it was reposted with the RAF elsewhere. She takes donations of bedding and clothing from the public and hands them out to homeless people in need locally.