At the very outset of this piece I’d like to thank Frank Portlock, Roy Matthews, Tottenham Alice Cooper (that is his real name), Peter Ewald and Amber Walters.  When ITV called me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I would go out and do the job of a cleaner in the town centre I was hesitant.

They had done a bit of research and knew that my mother was a hospital cleaner and that she used to get me work as a cleaner in my holidays when I was a student. ITV West are doing a series of programmes called ‘back to the floor’ where they invite MPs to go back and do some of the jobs they did in their youth.

So I agreed. First up, after donning the high visibility jacket I went litter picking on Northgate Street with Tottenham Alice Cooper – whose devotion for his favourite football team and favourite singer led to him changing his name in the 1960s.

People often moan about the state of our streets but it struck me, as we did our rounds, that most of the rubbish was within a few yards or even inches of a dustbin. Why don’t people just go the extra few inches and put their cigarette ends out in the bin rather than just near it?

Then Frank and Roy showed me one of the pavement sweeping vehicles and we took out it out for a drive and sweep. Street cleaning in Gloucester is a continual event these days, Frank sometimes takes the vehicles out at night or in the early hours.

Then Peter and Amber took me out for a patrol of the City Centre. They are City Rangers and part of their job is to make sure people don’t drop the litter in the first place – they have the power to hand out on the spot fines to those who do.

An exercise for a TV programme that was meant to be about me became, I think a more interesting one – because it was (more importantly) about Frank, Roy, Tottenham, Peter and Amber and the jobs that they do for us. We should never take them for granted.  

Parmjit Dhanda MP

Member of Parliament for Gloucester