During your next visit to Cutteslowe Park, thank Chris Huggins for his dedicated work.

The groundsman has worked for Oxford City Council’s parks department for 30 years and loves his job in this north Oxford oasis of green.

He is just one of two full time workers who keep the 74 acres neat and tidy and full of horticultural colour.

Their efforts have helped the park win a coveted Green Flag award.

Mr Huggins said: “We plant the borders the council chooses, but they do ask for our opinion when it comes to the herbaceous borders.

“We have help from other staff in the summer, when it gets quite hectic during the school holidays.

“I’m very proud of Cutteslowe Park and I like to see people enjoying it. It gives me pleasure to be here and I get lots of nice comments as well as letters too.”

The 62-year-old, who lives with his wife, Angela, in Harlow Road, Old Marston, was recruited after walking into the parks office looking for work on the off-chance.

He said: “I’ve been a gardener all my life and this is only my second job. I used to work in the market garden in Garsington before it closed down. I was doing a city and guilds there, but didn’t complete it because my boss couldn’t afford it.

“When I left I went to the parks office and someone had recently left, so I was lucky.

“For the first four years I worked as a groundsman on the Alexandra Park tennis courts and during the winter there wasn’t much to do, so I asked to move. I’ve been in Cutteslowe for 26 years.”

During that time he has looked after the flower borders, as well more mundane jobs like cleaning the loos and emptying the park’s 17 bins.

He also feeds and cleans out more than 100 birds in the aviary.

But Mr Huggins’ favourite jobs are those needing green fingers.

He said: “I’ve only got two more years before I retire. I’ll always be able to come up here and enjoy it, but I expect I’ll miss working in the park.”

When David Ridge travels to other towns or cities he likes to inspect the cleanliness of the streets.

That’s because he takes very seriously his job as an Oxford street cleaner.

The single 45-year-old, of Kimber Close, Wheatley, said: “I do have a sense of pride. When I visit another town or city I look at the state of their roads and visit the toilets to see how clean they are.

“I think we do a good job in Oxford, considering we have a lot of students and tourism has gone up by 20 per cent, so we have a lot of people coming into the centre and it’s not easy.

“Very rarely, someone will come up and thank you, but saying that, I do think the majority of people know what we do.”

Mr Ridge left his job as a university college caretaker to become a street cleaner after seeing the position advertised in the Oxford Mail five years ago.

He is one of 36 city council staff employed just to keep the city centre spic and span and they use a myriad of ways to tidy up.

Mr Ridge said: “The Grime Buster uses hot water to clean Cornmarket. It takes six weeks to clean it. It’s like the Forth Bridge. We clean up all sorts there — syringes, sick, blood.

“We start there at 5am, but have to stop at about 8am when there are too many people around.

“We also drive the sweeper around the city centre’s pavements. It sweeps up all the rubbish and collects it in the back ready to be emptied. At this time of year it’s full in about an hour because of all the leaves.

“Sometimes we push barrows, clearing up litter including cigarette ends — a problem that’s been getting worse since the smoking ban came in.”

Dan Barker spends a lot of his working life trawling through the rancid contents of other people’s rubbish.

But the environmental enforcement officer said he gets a lot of satisfaction from his work, which involves playing detective to catch and prosecute fly-tippers.

He said: “We get a report of fly-tipping and go to the site, take photos and see if there’s any evidence of who it’s come from.

“We have to put our gloves on and root around in bags. We see dirty nappies, cat litter, maggots and putrid meat — it’s very hands on.

“There’s a lot of detective work and you get a really good feeling when you can get to a person who’s making Oxford a dirtier place. There’s an immense satisfaction.”

Mr Barker, 29, said: “Some just dump household rubbish because they overfill their wheelie bin because they’re not recycling. They think they’ll get into trouble for that, but actually they get into even more trouble if they fly-tip.

“We can help people if they’re not recycling — either by educating them or by giving them better facilities, like more bins. I’d rather educate someone than take them to court.

“I’m passionate about rubbish. I have the smallest bin and it’s only ever half full, because I recycle everything else. It’s difficult to educate people, because you don’t want to sound righteous, but it’s very easy to recycle.

“We have very comfortable lifestyles and I enjoy that like everyone else, but I think it comes with responsibilities.”

As part of his enthusiasm, he is happy to dish out £80 fixed penalty notices — which reduce to £55 if paid within 10 days — to litter bugs who drop anything from crisp packets to cigarettes.

He said: “It costs the council a lot of money to keep our streets clean and that comes out of our council tax. Why should others be penalised financially just because someone chooses to throw litter?”