Tuesday, May 24 will live long in the memories of the volunteers who gave their time to clear rubbish from the Southern 100 circuit, prior to this year’s TT.
But it won’t be the numerous bags of rubbish which they collected which will be uppermost in their minds – the most memorable part of the event happened immediately afterwards.
Jill Manning, who lives on the coast road close to Kentraugh, offered to provide ‘tea and scones’ at her home for all the volunteers, but ‘tea and scones’ was a massive under-statement.
When 11 of the volunteers arrived at Jill’s house, she had prepared the most fantastic lunch spread, full of wonderful treats for everyone.
Beach Buddies stalwart Bill Dale said Jill and her husband Phil are great supporters of Beach Buddies. He said: ‘They wanted to contribute to our efforts in their own way. Our most sincere thanks are due for a memorable lunch in Jill and Phil’s lovely home, where their dog Alfie gave everyone a wonderful warm welcome!
‘In terms of a contribution to beach cleaning, this will remain in the memories of the volunteers much longer than picking up the thousands of items of rubbish carelessly dropped at the side of the Southern 100 circuit.
‘When we clean beaches, the majority of the rubbish is not “Manx”, and can be identified as 80 per cent from outside the Isle of Man, such as milk cartons and food packaging from Ireland.
‘However, the estimated 2,000 items of rubbish collected alongside the Billown circuit on Tuesday is 100 percent blamed on local residents, and was mostly made up of food packaging, fast food containers, tin cans and plastic bottles, all identifiable by Isle of Man logos, etc,and which were clearly thrown out of car windows by idiots.’
Bill added: ‘The UK has recently introduced on-the-spot fines for people who throw litter in the streets.
‘This is something we definitely need to follow – the sooner the better.’