"IT'S a load of rubbish!"

That's what many teenagers might cry if you asked what they thought of the idea of spending three days picking up litter from the side of the road.

But that's exactly what these three civic-minded schoolchildren spent their half term holiday doing.

Brothers Robert and Stuart Pierpoint, 14 and 11, from Didcot, teamed up with their neighbour Olivia Drewe, nine, collected this enormous pile of waste and more besides from just one rubbish route in Didcot – Park Road.

In return they got the satisfaction of cleaning up the environment on the rural road to West Hagbourne – and a little extra pocket money.

The boys' dad Darren Pierpoint, a farm mechanic, said: "Robert walks along Park Road quite regularly and he moans about the rubbish even at his age.

"All that pile was from just 400 yards of road.

"I work on lots of farms and as you drive around the country lanes they are disgusting."

Robert, a pupil at St Birinus School in Didcot, Stuart, who goes to the town's Northbourne primary, and Cranford House pupil Olivia are now back at school, but their parents hope their rubbish round-up might have fostered a lifelong love of the environment.

Mr Pierpoint added: "If they do it at that age, they're hopefully more likely to want to take care of it when they're older."