Residents will be able to remember lost loved ones at a “poignant but uplifting” ceremony next month.

South Bucks Hospice will host its annual Light Up A Life service on December 7 at its Butterfly House headquarters in High Wycombe.

There will be a 20-minute service at 5.15pm, after which guests will be able to place their own messages of remembrance written on stars onto a Christmas tree and light a candle.

Refreshments, including mince pies and mulled wine, will be served in the hospice’s bistro.

The Light Up A Life service has been an annual event at the hospice for several years.

Duncan Tucker, 74, from Widmer End, who has regularly attended the bereavement group at the hospice following the death of his wife Kay four years ago, described last year’s service as “brilliant”.

Mr Tucker, who plans to attend this year’s event, said after last year’s Light Up A Life ceremony: “It puts everything in context.

“I still miss Kay terribly, but it brings her alive again. She came to the old hospice three months before she died so this connects the old hospice with the new one.”

Last year, former Chiltern District Council chairman Mimi Harker, a patron of the hospice and also a former mayor of Amersham, described it as a “beautiful ceremony”.

She said at the time: “It was very poignant. I had a tear in my eye thinking of people I am missing. It is a wonderful way to celebrate the lives of the people we have lost.”

The hospice supports patients living with life-limiting or life threatening illnesses. It offers patient-centred care to individuals through the provision of specialist palliative, psychotherapeutic and lymphoedema care.

The charity also supports their families and carers.

To find out more about the bereavement group, call the nurses’ office on 01494 552755.