AS a young girl I used to cycle from Bold Lane to Clock Face Road through pretty farmland.

If I didn't want to go that way, I could turn left towards Gorsey Lane, via Gill Bond's. This was a particularly pretty run in the spring when it was bedecked with bluebells and other wild flowers. Alas, this is no more. Most of this area has been swamped with industry and warehouses.

Gone also the 'battery cob' where children played happily, many games, cowboys and indians, sliding down the cob, going home often with clay stained knickers, and no doubt receiving a scolding from mother, who in those days washed by hand in the old dolly tub.

Never mind, I thought, thanks to some hard-working volunteers, we still had one beauty spot -- the Mill Dam. So, on Boxing Day, after all the Christmas pud and too much sitting around, I decided to stretch my legs and walk round this area. I set out from Mill Lane by the Wheatsheaf, along the path, which the local rangers do their best to keep in good order.

My heart was light. No rain. In fact, there were blue patches of sky and the sun was out. Yes, it was good to be alive I thought. Birds -- robins, tits, sparrows, blackbirds and many more -- flying to and fro, various wild fowl in the brook.

Alas, it wasn't long before that light heart began to become heavy. Some idiot had dumped an old bike in the brook, litter, litter, litter, everywhere.

The further I went the worse it got. Bottles, cans, chip cartons, carrier bags. And, in the dam a large yellow skip type bin! I recalled last year when the dam was frozen I had to call out to some youngsters who were trying to walk across the ice to retrieve a wheelie bin, stuck in the middle. If the ice had broken they would have been swept away under the ice, by the strong current running down to the wash.

Now this yellow bin was too large to be carried by one person, it must have been transported by a few youths, and from where? And did no-one see them do it?

Quite a few years ago a group of local people got together, worked hard to preserve this beauty spot, and many more, like myself have planted bluebells forget-me-nots etc. to enhance this spot. So why do people vandalise all this work?

We have so little countryside left. I beg of you, don't turn this into a litter dump.

If any parents, teachers, scout masters etc., read my letter I beg you to teach the children in your care, to take care of what little countryside we have left. As I am afraid it is too late to plead with the yobbos that must be responsible for this awful litter.

Nature Lover, Sutton Leach (name & address supplied).