Thousands across North-West celebrate Diwali with fireworks and food

Thousands of people are preparing to enjoy food, dancing and fireworks later as Hindus across north-west England come together to celebrate Diwali.

About 1,500 Hindus are set to attend celebrations at Shree Swaminarayan Mandir temple in Oldham later, while about 100 people began their celebrations with prayers at Gujarat Hindu Society in Preston.

Anil Kara from Shree Swaminarayan Mandir Oldham said the temple had spent around a month preparing for its Diwali celebrations.

“We have a dedicated team of volunteers who love cooking and have been in the kitchen all week,” Mr Kara said.

“We have a dedicated team of volunteers who love cooking and have been in the kitchen all week,” Mr Kara said.

“This morning they started at [04:00 BST] to start cooking all the fresh and hot stuff.”

The Shree Swaminarayan Mandir temple is celebrating Ankoot, or Annakut, which is when food is prepared as an offering to Hindu deities.

Diwali, or the Festival of Lights, is a five-day Hindu festival celebrated by Hindu people across the world, as well as by Sikhs and Jains.

It is known as the ‘festival of lights’ because houses, shops and public places are decorated with small oil lamps called ‘diyas’.

Mr Kara said the temple was raising money from its Diwali celebrations for the nearby Dr Kershaw’s hospice.

“When we built this temple three years ago, we had this scheme that every year we will team up with a charity,” he said.

On Monday, around 250 people came through the doors of Liverpool Ganesh Temple to mark the festival of lights.

One of the temple’s leaders, Vijayarani Sureshkumar, said it was a day of “lots of treats, family and fireworks”.

She continued: “We are from South India so we celebrate Diwali as good destroying evil.

“People come to prayers, meet their friends and family, have food and in the evening watch the fireworks.”

At Preston’s Gujarat Hindu Society, Vice President Ishwer Tailor said worshippers had laid out 108 different types of food as offerings to the Hindu gods.

He said: “We pray to gods that in the coming new year we are blessed with all those varieties of food and also we have good health and a prosperous life, and pray for peace in the world.”