JUST a few of Clayhidon’s clean-up volunteers . . . and just a small sample of what they have picked up from parish lanes, roadside ditches and hedges.

A team of about 20 volunteers recovered a mini-mountain of beer cans, soft drinks bottles, cardboard coffee cups – presumably thrown out of cars – plus masses of plastic and bizarrely a large pile of used tea bags.

Someone even found a soggy £10 note – and donated it to the Big Breakfast in aid of Cancer Research.

Not absolutely everywhere was covered but organiser and parish councillor Alison Weekes estimates a good 80 per cent of the parish has been cleared.

“And most of these lovely volunteers are prepared to do this on an ongoing basis, which they should be thanked for,” she said. “However, we all wish people would just realise how selfish it is to chuck a can or sweet wrapper out of their car window.”

Worryingly, several bits of cardboard look as if they were lost from the recycling lorry.

The hardest place to find volunteers was the Bolham valley but luckily parish councillor Alex Hill spent hours between Shackles Cross and Whitedown Cross. Someone is still needed to help out in the odd Lemons Hill corner of the parish.

Other volunteers were Sandra and Rosie Aldworth, Maureen, Nicola and Caroline Bendle, Yvonne Roth, Geoff and Jenny Stevens, Judy Hutt, Caroline King, Anne Langford, parish councillor Sue Hay, the Redwood family from Hidewood Farm, Susan Annett and Richard Brown, Val and George Slabbert, Gareth Weekes and The Wellington Scouts (thanks to Nicky Woodgate).

Alison added: “I want to say a huge thank you to all of them on behalf of us all in Clayhidon.”