I had to check that it wasn't 1st April when I read the letter regarding the exclusion of sheep from around the Westbury White Horse.

I take it that the writer, who appears to talk for all local people and visitors, is not a country person to have such a sanitised idea of how the countryside works.

The fact that the countryside around the White Horse is so picturesque, has not happened by accident but by careful, rotational grassland management of which grazing and manuring is part.

It is not the result of hundreds of little men with lawnmowers, or walking sheep on leads.

That's what the countryside is all about. It's called nature.

As to the subject of sheep droppings, they are ruminants, and as such are not a great health hazard, or particularly offensive, unlike dogs and, dare I say it, humans.

So if your children come into contact with it, wash it off, they won't die.

The alternative of course is to picnic safely in your back garden, but be very careful if there are cats about because, what they leave behind is harmful and anti-social.

Now, the exclusion of cats from around the White Horse, or anywhere else, is a cause that I would gladly join!

R Lewis,

Warminster.