Dear Sir,

This letter of thanks should have been written for your September edition but our calendar fell off the kitchen wall! Sincere thanks to Eric Payne and David Soden who left their comfortable Saturday ‘lie-in’ to drain the pond at 7 o’clock a.m. Equal appreciation to the band of noble workers who paraded at 8.15 with brush and spade and who helped catch the 43 fish and untold tadpoles, not to mention water shrimps and transfer them to an airated tank, kindly provided by the Trent water Board. A mention in despatches to Glen (Eric’s dog) who drew our attention to a stranded duckling by putting his nose to the drain pipe and barking until the Quacker was retrieved none the worse for its incarceration from down the drain. The biggest thanks of all to David Taylor from Swalcliffe who arrived at 9 a.m. when the pond was drained, with his tractor and suction machinery; with the help of a multitude of slime covered villagers brushing the bottom of the pond two truckloads of evil smelling sludge was sucked out and transferred to The Colony to, perhaps, help with next year’s celery crop! Our thanks to the amateur refuse collectors who transferred the salvaged bicycle wheels, broken bottles and other junk to the refuse tip. Finally even more thanks for the loan of a garden hose to help the natural drainage of water into the pond to refill it, and to the long suffering fish who were returned by 7 p.m. just in time for a ‘midge’ supper. A kind lady from the Ferris planted a group of plants in the pure clean pond. Our thanks to her too, we trust they will survive and flourish.

Beverley Hardman