Yesterday I took part in the annual RESCUE clean-up operation run by Tilehurst Globe. I spent a couple of hours clearing rubbish from Blundell’s Copse, one of several wooded areas that make Tilehurst such a pleasant place to live. The woods, of course, attract kids and apart from being a place to walk the dogs, they are a huge free-range playground.

One of the perverse joys of clearing up the mess that had accumulated over the last year was discovering what our younger generations had been up to in the woods. There were countless discarded blue plastic bottles of cheap cider and not a few empty beer cans which belie any notion that we are successfully cracking down on under-age drinking. Interestingly, there were almost no fag ends or signs of smoking, just lots of bottles and cans and piles of domestic refuse, especially close to any of the neighbouring houses.

So I started to think what lessons I could draw from my time in Blundell’s Copse and here are a few thoughts.

Kids do still obtain cheap booze and consume it in out-of-the-way places where no-one bothers them. Is this better or worse than staggering round the streets of Tilehurst whilst a little the worse for wear, or is this perfectly normal, acceptable, behaviour from youngsters with little else to occupy themselves ? I think the general view was that if that’s all they got up to then leave them to it. If only they would take their bottles and cans away when the finished !  Thankfully, our youngsters do not appear to be that much taken with smoking, which can only be a good thing.

Secondly, people do abuse our woodlands by fly-tipping all sorts of domestic rubbish and some of the worst offenders are those who live closest to them. We have a long way to go to convince residents that woods are nicer without the heaps of rubbish and endless bits of litter.

My thanks to Tilehurst Globe for organising this annual event and to all those who take part.