Lorry owner set to spread cheer around town by playing ‘uplifting music’ outside homes

A family-run haulage company is set to fill a town’s streets with flashing lights and “uplifting music” as staff attempt to spread some cheer during lockdown.

Chris Riches, from Chris Riches haulage company, in Thetford, has received more than 50 requests from families across the town who would like a visit from his musical lorry while they are stuck in their homes.

This comes after Mr Riches dropped off essential items to his mother-in-law’s in his HGV and played music outside of her home and residents came out in their gardens “singing and smiling”.

Now the 41-year-old is planning a route around Thetford to make sure he can reach as many people as possible. He said: “We only gave it a thought on Friday after we visited my mother-in-law in the lorry to cheer her up.

“And then we saw people dancing, smiling and waving in their gardens, they loved it.

“We put it on Thetford Forum to see if people liked the idea and the requests haven’t stopped coming in.”

After receiving a positive response online, Mr Riches and his wife, Liana Riches, will be touring the town from around 6.30pm to 8pm on Thursday, April 23, as they blare out music chosen by the community.

With songs such as, Sweet Caroline, Dancing Queen, Three Little Birds, You’ll Never Walk Alone and even Baby Shark, lined up for the journey. Mr Riches said he is still taking requests.

Mr Riches added: “We are going to do all of the main roads through estates and we wanted to keep the songs uplifting.

“My daughter also did a work placement at a care home in the town, so we are going to go and play them some songs outside too.

“Some people are a little bit lonely and when they message us with their requests they have also been telling us a bit about themselves and why they would like us to visit.

“We know a lot of people haven’t got much to look forward to so we thought if we could do something and make one person smile it would be worthwhile.”