The local estate agents describe our village as one of the prettiest in north Hampshire. It has a delightful little flint church and an extraordinary display of snowdrops throughout the village each spring. Now the bluebells are coming out and the cow parsley is shooting up in the verges. It should be faultless, but many people seem determined to spoil it.

My eldest son is paid a few pounds to pick up litter in the village each week. It’s extra-ordinary how much he finds. It’s not just passers-by throwing stuff out of the car. Somebody throws a bottle of gin and tonic into the hedge at the top of the hill every day. There are always seven to pick up. Last weekend, there was a sofa why somebody took the trouble to drive it to the entrance of the farmer’s field to dump rather than take it to the tip is beyond me, but they did.

Fly tipping is getting out of hand. I fear that, across the country, county-council decisions to pick up rubbish less frequently and possibly charge for it by weight will see fly tipping get a lot worse. We all need to fight to tighten up on this scourge of the countryside.