Litter picking is not the kind of activity children want to be doing during the summer holidays but three youngsters have been getting their hands dirty to tidy up a Cromer coastal path.

Jeremy and Rachel Sharman had travelled up from Surrey with their young family, staying with Rachel's father Len Boyd, who lives in Clifton Park, Cromer.

The family took their pet Labrador, Lola, along the pathway between Howard's Hill and Clifton Park. The dog found an old sandwich which had gone mouldy and subsequently became ill.

So Mr Boyd suggested the youngsters should lead by example and give the area a tidy up themselves.

After they had collected three bin bags full of litter, 12-year-old Kitty Sharman wrote to the North Norfolk News to ask people to take more care of Cromer.

'There is a bin at the end of the lane to put the mess in why dump it when you can bin it? It's silly,' Kitty said.

'People are extremely lazy, they think nobody cares if they dump their rubbish down some path that few people use. Well a message to them, we do care, we have a gate out of our garden that is attached to the path we cleared.'

Amongst the mess picked up were beer bottles, a full carton of fruit juice and 'heaps and heaps' of dog mess close to the gate near Kitty's grandfather's home.

'There is dog mess everywhere in front of the gate it is disgusting,' Kitty continued. 'Young children stay at the house, if they pick up something or put it near their mouth they could get seriously ill. People do not think ahead.

'If you feel you are about to dump something think, what will happen and would you like that to happen to you?'

Kitty was joined by her nine-year-old brother, Louis, and 15-year-old cousin, Henry Pinion, for the clean up operation.

Mr Boyd, 64, said the dog mess is a constant problem along the path, which he uses when he goes into town.

'We went right from the old zoo entrance on Howard's Hill over the top to the old railway bridge on the coastal path,' Mr Boyd said.

'It's slightly out of sight down there so people like to let their dogs off the lead and then they just leave the mess behind.'