MEMBERS of the British Legion and workers from a major supermarket chain joined forces over the weekend to restore a memorial garden described as ‘disgusting’ by an angry resident in last week’s Comet.

The garden on the grounds of Tesco in Baldock, commemorates workers of the former Kayser Bondor factory, the previous occupant of the art deco fronted building on the High Street, who died in World War II and was littered with empty beer cans, vodka bottles and dead leaves.

Brian Doyle, treasurer of Baldock’s British Legion branch, said: “All we need is volunteers to come here and clean it up, once or twice a year.

“We’re dumping out bottles, we haven’t come across any needles yet.

“It is all vodka bottles, and stuff like that we are pulling out.

“Its the kids who are using this so I can’t see anyone from Tesco coming down here at night to chase them out.

“I never bothered coming down here before because it was just a mess.

“I would quite honestly like to see some volunteers from the town because we can’t keep relying on Tesco. This is a memorial garden so why can’t we get some volunteers to just rake it and clean it?

“I’m going to ask the legion and hopefully some legionnaires will step forward to come occasionally once a month and give it a brush over.”

Mr Doyle was joined on Saturday by the Baldock’s British Legion chairman Pete Cherry and Mr Cherry’s three-year-old grandson Mason Wright who also mucked in.

Mr Cherry said: “We filled up about 30-40 bags of leaves and everything.

“It didn’t take long before we finished it and we are going to go back out this weekend.

“We have got the bulk of it done, that was the hard bit.”

The deputy manager of Tesco’s Baldock store, Christian Pratt, said: “With the help of the British Legion the memorial garden will be restored in time for Remembrance Sunday.”