AFTER serving Kempsey from behind a counter for 30 years, Roy Clarke has come out of retirement to serve the village in a different way.

Less than six months after closing Clarke's Hardware shop, he has swapped hardware for hedging and ditching.

On Tuesday, February 1, Mr Clarke became the parish lengthsman, with a mission to keep Kempsey's paths and verges tidy.

In just two weeks, he has done enough work on Main Road to draw favourable comments from parishioners.

"People are quite surprised at the width of the pavements, now that they can get their pushchairs along them," said parish clerk Andrea Halford at this week's council meeting.

The difficulty of negotiating some of Kempsey's pavements had been a regular source of complaint, as grass, weeds and overhanging vegetation encroached on the footpaths.

Mr Clarke said the paths had been so overgrown that he had cut the verges back by nearly 1ft in places.

"After I did the path over the recreation ground by The Limes, someone said he could now walk to the pub side-by-side with his mates, instead of going in single file," he said.

Having taken early retirement at the age of 58, Mr Clarke could have sat quietly at home.

"But I have been active all my life and I thought I would like to put something back into the village," he said.

He is only employed for seven hours per week, but is "getting ahead" at the moment, because he and his wife, Kate, will soon be flying off to Cape Town to visit his brother.