MY wife and I decided as we are both fans to spend a couple of weeks in Herriot Country.

We are enjoying our visit very much except for one disappointing sight we saw a couple of days ago.

On one of our trips we went through the village of Ainderby Steeple, seeing the church at the top of the hill, these also being interests of ours, we decided to stop. After parking the car at the far side of the green we walked back to the church.

It was a very pretty one but when we walked around into the churchyard, what a disgraceful sight met us. The grass had been cut but left where it fell and judging by the quantity we had to walk through this is a regular occurrence thus resembling a hay field. It was obvious that the mower just goes straight across the graves because between and round the headstones the grass is left long and straggly. The headstones also had a carpet of dried grass on them.

This churchyard is obviously still in use by the dates on some of the graces and some had fresh flowers on them.

On leaving we met a man walking his dog and after the usual pleasantries we mentioned the state of the churchyard. The man, a local, replied that it was always like that and the church committee didn’t seem to see anything wrong with it then added if you complain you were told you could always tend to your relatives yourself. When I said that could be a good idea he then said as they paid someone to do the job so why should relatives have to do it.

Come on Ainderby Steeple church committee you have a very nice church in a pretty village, in a beautiful part of the country, which is being ruined by a disgraceful churchyard.

Mr J Davis, Spalding, Lincs