UKC

This morning, I litter picked from the top of Penyghent from  trig point down to the village (Brackenbottom).  I spied a small item of (what I thought was) litter way off the path which I wasn’t going to go for, but did, and found it was a tenner!! Double my only other similar find a few years ago, which was a fiver.

Too late for any claimants: sorry: it’s going in the CRO collection tin in a local outdoor shop.

Can anyone do better than a tenner?

Sat down on a bench on top of Beachy Head and looked down to a £20 note about 15 years ago. Had a couple of cream teas on it.

No, but I also litter-pick regularly both on the hill and along the local road (using one of those grabber things), and I can equal you in having found a tenner (years ago) and also (one day last year) two fivers side by side. I sometimes wonder just how much money there is lying around - eg 5p coins seem remarkably common.

I was once told an amazing story about someone who had a border collie that had been trained to detect the smell of money for search and rescue purposes. It would do this when not on duty as well, and over the course of its life came back with £250 from here and there. Useful dog!

How much food did the dog eat though over its lieftime - way more than £250 I bet.

Not worth having a dog just to try and find money if it don't make more than it costs to keep.

Good way of subsidising a dog that you would have anyway, though. (Our cat has been completely useless in that regard thus far.)

On a wet night about 30 years ago a friend and I found a tenner sticking to the pavement in the Gorbals - goodness knows how it had survived there for more than 30 seconds, but it had. We debated what to do: my friend had more of a conscience than me (he went on to become a church minister), so we split it into two fivers, he gave his to some charity and I bought us both a pint with my share of the "winnings".

An off the topic response.....

I took a wander up Dumyat recently, went from the main car park, along the "newly installed" improved path - as is usual with these things it takes the steepest lines, is good in bits until you get to a boggy section of ground where it just stops, is then picked up again later - why bother - the old path was way better. Never mind, my first time walking up and down, a family day out and all enjoyed themselves - bairn's ran ahead, summited, ran back, I then told them true summit was behind so they turned and joined us to go back to the summit, they did some muttering when they realised I had hoodwinked them, they then took the car key and ran down to scoff all the food before we got back - a kwality family trip.

Back on topic - I always mean to buy some of those litter grabbers so we can keep the local roads and paths clear, anyone got a link to a "decent" one? 

About 10 years ago now, we’d been walking in the Lake District, it was my son Solly’s first time in the mountains and we’d been emphasising the importance of picking up litter. He was keen. Highlight of the holiday, walking up Scafell Pike. He dashes of the path to pick up some paper, two £20 notes!

Found a tenner in amongst discarded red bill cans, fag packets, takeaway cartons whilst doing a litter pick at the local marina.  It had been there a while as it had started to biodegrade and had a small hole in it.  Spent ok.

Years ago I knew a bloke who would go out at dawn on Saturday and Sunday mornings and cycle round the late night kebab shops, takeaways and taxi ranks looking for dropped money.  He said it was worth his while.  He was one of the stingiest people I have ever met.

I didn't buy the one I have - it was acquired from a deceased parent - but it's worked well for several years and the brand name seems to be Helping Hand from Ledbury. It also has Grip Cert written on the actual grabber bit. You can get things like this from the disability aid shops, the ones that sell wheelie walkers and reclining chairs etc.

Back off-topic: The main path up Dumyat is a strange thing (I live close by and pop up quite often but it's not my favourite hill). The previous unimproved version of the path was getting to be a right old mess especially during wet spells, but the new version isn't very good either (and is much worse for litter) - and the gaps you mention are weird. Suspect they ran out of money, but I'm not sure. I reckon there are seven main ways up Dumyat, if just using paths, and the main path is arguably the poorest of them. I've only once been up that way in the decade or so since they did the work (and that was in the dark, in search of a lost hat that remained lost), and although I do sometimes come down it I much prefer the "parallel path" just to the north if heading back to that bit of the Sheriffmuir road.

Years ago I worked as a litter picker at Glastonbury one year, for which you got free entry, a secure camping area and food provided. 

In return we were required to spend four hours each morning litter picking between 5:30 and 9:30, so not missing any of the bands. Wondering through the carnage of the night before, with a few hard core still going, was quite lucrative. Over the course of a weekend I found: a twenty pound note; an ounce of weed; a good quality Zippo lighter; a bag of random pills (which some of our fellow hippy litter pickers identified as ketamin). My friend also found a wallet with about £150 cash and a load of fancy looking cards in it.

All was pocketed apart from the ketamin, which we gave to the hippies and the wallet which we handed into lost property.

Walking up Guildford High Street in 1983. A bloke coming towards me pulled something out of his jacket pocket. Something else fell on the floor. I saw it. He didn't.

I picked it up. It was a roll of large notes, probably 1" in diameter. I took a couple of steps, turned round, and gave it back to him. And walked smartly away before I regretted it...

I was a poor student. It would probably have kept me in beer all term.

Regarding litter and Dumyat, a few years ago the litter on the path up from Menstrie was so bad that I regularly took up a plastic bag to do some tidying on the way up and down. One day I saw I guy I knew well coming down as I was going up. As he walked past a large pile of McDonalds debris (which he ignored) he  proceeded to ask me if I was going shopping. What a wag! Don't know why I'm boring people with this uninteresting tale but the memory of it still rankles and putting it in writing has given me a certain satisfaction.

I was out running recently on the track from White Hall going towards Buxton and spotted something in the grass at the side. It was a large hip flask and even better full! It was Bourbon whisky and very nice too. I did wait until I'd finished my run before sampleing.

Funnily enough I found a tenner last week walking down from Blackstone Edge. I’d already done a little tidy up and cleaned some excess chalk so fully justified in pocketing the thing. Doing the right thing brings it’s own reward 😁

I've just remembered that last year I was actually given a reward for picking up litter. My dog walking neighbour has a tablet making business and he brought me round a present of some squares of his very tasty tablet as a thank you after he saw me clearing up a lot of broken glass in a lane near our houses. I wasn't so lucky the second time I cleared up glass in the lane as a couple of disaffected youths celebrated my efforts with a cheery "What are you doing, with your big paedo moustache?" Ooooooh, the banter!

I found £20 whilst walking the dog last year but the best find ever was £2.

It was back in 82 when I was 10 years old. A car came own the street and fluttering in the wind were 2 1£ notes. I took one and my mate took one. The following day my mate came round and said his dad says we have to hand it in to the police.

Mine was long gone on sweets and pop. 

You know how you often see coins in the street? One pence, two pence etc. About 20 years ago I decided to collect them to see how much it added up to in a year. £1.35! Well chuffed.

I went to a fancy dress party many moons ago dressed as Austin Powers. The costume was cheap and itchy /scratchy as hell all night but on putting my hand in the pocket, pulled out a twenty. Covered the cost of the hire and small compensation for frilly irritation all evening.

Walking home from the girlfriends as a naive 17 year old to find £20 in a puddle. Got home and stuck it on the radiator to dry it out to find it was actually two stuck together and a total of £40!

Good effort with the Menstrie path clearing, Russell - I well remember when it was terrible with litter and it's now much better thanks to your efforts. Funnily enough I was chatting earlier this week in Tillicoultry with a chap who was picking up litter using a golf club. He said he has a session every couple of weeks and that more or less keeps on top of it, although there was loads around when we were talking and he clearly had his work cut out. He said - which fits with my take on this - that it's only a few people who drop litter in any given area, "but they're very good at it".

Exactly who does it tends to go unseen, but it can sometimes be surprising, and a long way from the standard thing of blaming it on kids and neds. A few years ago I did the standard Ochils loop from Tillicoultry and at one point caught up with a group of four or five academics who were having a very serious-sounding discussion about PhDs and funding and various other university matters. I stopped for lunch and they got ahead of me, and I then followed them at maybe ten minutes' distance. I can't now recall how many sweetie wrappers I picked up, but it was lots - ten or more, at regular intervals. There was no one else around and the litter was recent - I had no doubt at all that it was one or more of the dons (or whatever such people are called these days) who had been doing the dropping.

Money on the streets of Scotland?

You're pulling our legs.

find a penny, pick it up, and all day you'll have a penny

old proverb, I believe

Thanks, Dave. Unfortunately my litter picking on hills is now limited by the fact that my balance is going with age and I need to use use poles coming downhill.

Regarding my earlier post about the tablet gift, I ate the first square while on a route you had suggested to me which I had never noticed before. - At the start of the hydro track reached by dropping off to the right from the NW ridge of Stuc a'Chroin. It has stuck in my mind because I was getting a bit weary and the tablet kept me going back to Ardvorlich.

Off to meet a pal this morning to go up the Kirton burn path to King's Seat, another route I didn't know about until you told me. He has never been this way and I am sure he will enjoy it.

The tenner was walking down fron Blackstone edge? It was out for a nice wander and you took it prisoner? I thought you were better that that, Steve.

Years back I found one of those metal coin boxes that had been ripped out of a phone box. It had been dumped on a bit of a waste ground. It weighed a ton and I was on my bike (it was a few miles from where I lived) so like a good 13 year old I just called the police when I got home... always regretted it! 

You massive pendant James

Not really litter, but I did pick up a zoom lens in case off an Italian mountain once. It had obviously been out at least overnight so I kept it and charity shopped it when I got home - it was an old Pentax mount one and wasn't worth much according to ebay.

Thank you, Steve. I shall wear that as a badge of honour

I once found a crate full of £20 notes under a railway bridge that must have been thrown off a train transporting them by a criminal gang.

Before the gang found them, me and a couple of mates carried all the money off and hid it at home.

We each opened post office savings accounts in different villages in the area, and spent Saturdays cycling round to deposit £20 in each one every week so as not to raise suspicion by depositing too much at once. 

At school we got a bit lazy and started paying other kids to do stuff for us like carry bags, do homework, run to the shop to get sweets etc. Before you knew it the was massive inflation and every kid in the school had a pocket full of 20's. 

After a few months we noticed that some police had started to park up in the local area and were watching people go about their business. We realised they must have been able to track down the missing notes, or maybe parents had got suspicious about why their kids had so much money, and we'd be caught soon if we weren't careful. 

So, one evening we put all our remaining money in sacks, and burned it in the local wood. Good job too, because a few days later my house got raided by the police and they would surely have found the money in its hiding spot under the floorboards if I hadn't removed it.

- a true story, definitely not paraphrased from a book I read as a kid. 

Our family often does a spot of litter picking in the local woods with our litter pickers and bags, it's a quite good fun, bit like a treasure hunt. Have found all sorts of unusual stuff, including a bucket with some cutlery in it, forks & spoons - no knives. Wife was all for throwing it all away, but I gave a fork a bit of a clean and saw a hallmark. Cleaned up the rest and put it on the police lost & found website (local police station closed many years ago). After a year or so, nobody claimed it so I took it to a jewellers who made stuff from silver, he weighed the cutlery and gave me £400 for it!!!

Former colleague of mine spotted a large tupperware box in a ditch when he was out running.

Being curious in nature he pulled it out and opened it to find it was stuffed with bags of white powder.  He replaced it as found and told the police.  And ran elsewhere for a while.

Slightly off topic but I was walking recently on the track from White Hall going towards Buxton and dropped my hip flask. It was mainly used for Bourbon whisky so smelled pretty strongly of that, but I'd peed in it the night before. Hopefully whoever finds it reads this first before necking it!

I used to live in one of our colonies. Found a 50p note. (not a typo!) And we handed it into the police.

Do you mean a 10 shilling note?

 No they were 50p thought we were rich

Lovely thread.  Stopping off at Duverton on the way to Lundy summer 2020 I saw an abandonded Greg's bag on a bench by the river.  Did my civic duty and was delighted to find the scoundrel who had put their trash in it and left it on the bench had also put their change in it, something like £5.50.  Virtue is it's own reward but a £5 was nice.

The chap I met Tillicoultry last week said he too needed a stick these days so he didn't always use his grabber when litter-picking but a golf club was a good compromise (think it was a lofted wedge he had, although I'm not sure).

I have my uses! Hope you had a nice time. Very pleasant glen, and quiet despite the obvious-from-afar path. I must have been there 60 or 70 times (probably 90% down, only very occasionally up) and the number of people I've met on the path will still be in single figures. While you were doing that I was wandering round the Beinn a' Ghlo Munros - I normally do that (or at least the first two) once a year but hadn't been there since Covid happened. Hardly any litter, just one chocolate bar wrapper (but a couple of people with a bloody drone - aerial litter, arguably). Nice day with good views although a few patches of light rain drifting about.

I once found the equivalent of £40 on a French mountain. I also found a similar amount whilst swimming in Bala lake a few years back.

Tut. Bloody geocachers, eh...?

So that's where my chalk went

Paved with gold.

Locally it was always “find a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck”. But I’m with you, all day long you’ll have a penny more than you started with