There have been several letters about noisy children in one area of the Sid Valley.

My husband and I are living right beside the piece of grass that they come to play on.

We are grandparents and our two grandchildren live just down the road, so we kept an eye on it all. On the whole they were fine, talking and laughing, sharing their bikes and scooters. The age group is from six to 12 years old, and it was nice to see a mixed age group getting on so well.

As the summer moved on, the numbers of children grew. Some even dropped off by car in the morning.

Eventually, they started to get out of hand – one child I saw, lying in the middle of the road playing ‘chicken’ with the traffic.

They played ‘it’, running between cars, both parked and moving. This seemed to happen in the early evenings, as some of the older ones came back from The Byes.

They all had bikes, scooters, skateboards and, of course, their own feet. The evening became a mad place, racing up and down the street like a herd of horses, screaming, shouting and yelling. It got so bad that many neighbours were talking about it.

From that point, many local children were told to come in, especially if one or another child turned up. Things did start to calm down, and now, of course, they are back at school.

Maybe one or two visiting children helped to push the wild behaviour. But on the whole, the local children, with family control, are fine. Maybe the others could learn from them, instead of the other way around.

Eighteen months ago we talked to the council about our bit of grass and asked to cut down some shrubs falling over our wall. They told us that we, and any neighbours, could look after the grass and plant it with spring bulbs and wildflowers.

When the children came to play here in the late spring, we told them about the piece we were looking after and asked them not to walk on it and, on the whole, they didn’t.

Now we are getting some bulbs from the Keith Owen Fund. We have told the children about it and they can come and see what it is all about, when the bulbs arrive, and if they can help, they would be welcome.

Tony and Sheila Guest

Sidford