Christmas spirit is sadly lacking

This Christmas families will come together and enjoy much needed quality time together. Parents will exchange presents, children will squabble over the remote control and friends will drink too much wine and fall asleep on the sofa.

The routine and the ritual is a timely reminder to appreciate the ones you love – family life is played out to the fullest over these few, intense weeks.

It’s also for this reason Christmas can be the most torrid time – a period where the pain and loss of losing someone is stark, overwhelming and often unbearable.

So it seems incomprehensible that Sandra Young’s family have been told they could face a hefty £1,000 bill to remove a disability lift.

The family is grieving since popular Sandra collapsed and died while out shopping at the beginning of the month.

The mum of three is yet to be buried and the presents she wrapped remain untouched. The lift that helped her from the lounge to the bedroom is now a crude reminder of the unnecessary stress and financial burden inflicted upon a family unable to grieve.

The company involved – Wessex Lifts – needs to do some soul searching and waive the fee; not just because it’s Christmas, but because it is the right thing to do.

Telling a grieving husband just days after his wife of 19 years died in his arms that he could face such a bill is mean-spirited.

The company need to put people first and allow them to organise a funeral without the stress of finances.

They need to allow the family to be together and allow them to fill their thoughts with the most important person this Christmas time, Sandra Young.