A CALL to arms in Lea has been met with a terrific response as volunteers got their overalls on, their ladders up and their paintbrushes out to help with maintenance at the village hall.

About 15 residents answered a plea by the village hall maintenance committee to come along last weekend and help out with a few maintenance jobs that needed doing and it was a testament to community spirit in the village that so much was achieved.

Lots of jobs needed doing, from giving the hall a general spring clean to the biggest job of laying a new gravel path along the side of the hall.

Kevin Tibbs, chair of the village hall maintenance committee and pictured extreme right, said: “It all went rather well.

“We had about 15 or so people turn up, we listed lots of jobs and pretty much every one of them got done.

“A kind villager went to get the gravel on his trailer and with quite a few wheelbarrows we had a small team doing the path.

“We had a couple of painting jobs inside, all the windows had to be cleaned and there was even a bit of plaster work needed.

“We even had a guy up a ladder clearing leaves.

“It sounds like the hall was in a right state but it was just that all the jobs seemed to mount up.

“It was all done and dusted within a couple of hours, many hands make light work as the saying goes.

Kevin praised the work of the villagers, saying how nice it was to see the community coming together.

“I think in villages nowadays, lots of people are shutting their doors to the community spirit so having a hall, a pub or a shop certainly helps get people together”, he said.

“You’ll always find there’s a group of people who want to contribute and it was so nice to put something back.”