I AM really sad to see that Golborne's happiest little garden has vanished.

The cheery plot at the front of a Lowton Road bungalow, which always made me smile when I passed, is no more.

The brightly-coloured tubs and windows boxes have gone, the butterflies have flittered from the walls and the little pot pigs with their cheery notices have been banished.

The garden has now merged into the plain surrounding landscape following the recent death of gardening resident Neville Tarbuck.

He dedicated the threefold garden to his wife, who died in 1998. Shortly after, he told me the windmills, pigs and gnomes were for the passing children, the flowers for the adults and the signs for people with a sense of humour.

Trying to come to terms with his wife's death, he admitted it was a happy garden, but it was a lonely, unhappy man keeping it going for the public as he'd promised his wife he would.

What a pity the memorial garden could not be kept as a tribute to him.