Planting a splash of colour

Parts of the patch will look even prettier than usual in the spring when crocus bulbs planted by members of the Maidstone Riverside Rotary Club to mark World Polio Day peep their flowers through. Rotary members, pictured from left, Paul Wray, Lloyd Rogers, Rob Stephens, Peter Bodycombe and Pete and Sonia Wright bedded in dozens of bulbs in Courtenay Road and Church Road, Tovil. The Rotary fellowship has raided funds for the eradication of polio through extensive immunisation campaigns for many years. The crocus is the symbol of the campaign, because a purple dye is applied to children’s fingers to show that they have been immunised. In 2012 some members of Riverside Rotary visited India and helped directly with the immunisation programme near Delhi. Polio was wiped out in the UK in the 1980s but still exists in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. The target is to eradicate polio world-wide by 2020. East Farleigh, Chart Sutton, Barming and Boxley also received crocus bulbs.