Volunteers recover vital charity items in hunt of unwanted festival gear

Volunteers were invited to search through the thousands of left-behind items after the annual music festival, held at Richfield Avenue Park, over the bank holiday weekend.
The group of six, which consisted of Janine Silver, Gloria Groome, James Groome, Emma Thorburn, Sam West and Sue Armstrong-Follows, had a target to collect a minimum of 20 pop-up tents.
However, what they collected far exceeded this, and they left the site with dozens of tents, sleeping bags, camping chairs and wellington boots.
They also came across a number of more unique items, which lifted spirits in the heavy rain, including a wig on a stick, a silver tankard and cooked crocodile head.
Ms Armstrong-Follows said: “The site looked like a war zone when we arrived. It was hard to take in that people would just leave so much behind.
“The weather was awful. It continued to rain all day. The whole site was muddy.
“The volunteers, recruited via Facebook, got very wet and muddy but we had a great time.
“We had to wear high-visability jackets, donated by GAZPAK, protective gloves and very nearly - but not quite - waterproofs.
“We lost count after 20 tents and just kept going, jamming everything into the cars until we couldn’t fit another thing in.”
The volunteers are now in the process of cleaning all of the collected items so they are ready for use by Loose Ends.
Ms Armstrong-Follows said the charity hopes to undertake the clear-up operation again next year.
Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer for Loose Ends, which also runs a soup kitchen at Moreton Hall, behind Newbury Baptist Church, Cheap Street, should email looseendsnewbury@hotmail.co.uk or called the Volunteer Centre West Berkshire on (01635) 49004.