IN these troubled times, my wife and I have taken to picking up litter on our daily exercise walks.

This gives purpose to the walks and makes us feel virtuous.

But I'll tell you an extraordinary thing.

On our walk yesterday, up Moolham Lane near Ilminster, we picked up 33 empty Thatcher's Gold cider cans.

Okay, they weren't the only cans: there were a few cola cans, a Budweiser, a couple of Red Bulls, a Carlsberg. But Thatcher's Gold far, far outstripped the rest.

Why should this be? A strange devotion to the former prime minister? Devotion to cider, certainly.

And is this littering the work of 33 motorists, or just of one sad person addicted to drinking cider on his way to work, and tossing the empty can into the countryside?

And how can the tosser be stopped?

MARTIN ROUNDELL GREENE Ilminster