It seems odd to be thinking about Hallowe’en with a hosepipe ban in place and temperatures in the high 20s.

But a Farnham group can’t wait to light up the town when darkness is all around and our long, hot summer is a distant memory.

Preparations for this year’s Farnham Lantern Festival are already well underway with kits for the October event available from the end of the month.

Pippa Hufton, Farnham Craft Town co-ordinator, has encouraged people to start early given the success of the inaugural festival and expected demand.

She said: “We try and encourage people to start in the summer – we had 300 last year, but this year we’re going for 1,000.

“We weren’t sure how it would be accepted so we were blown away by what happened last year.

“There’s this issue about it being on Hallowe’en but we’ve decided it’s for groups of people that don’t celebrate it or get involved.”

Organisers are confident the October Craft Month event will become a firm favourite on the town calendar.

They held a morning course early this month for community group leaders to “go off and spread the word” about the festival.

Volunteers will be asked to start distributing kits with free copies being given to local community groups.

Pippa added: “We’ve got a lantern event planned for October 4 at Frensham Heights School as they’ve got a great arts and crafts wing.

“But there’s lots of things happening throughout the year with the craft town and the craft trail is one of them.

“We will do a big event on October 25 and 26 to try and drive a bit more footfall because we just want to get as many people involved as we can.”

For more details follow the ‘lantern festival’ link at vhttps://www.farnhamcrafttown.com