AN OXFORD Mail paper 'boy' has quit his job to pick litter after more than 40 years of delivering newspapers.

James Nash, 57, who is known to his friends as ‘Nasher’, delivered this paper in Berinsfield, near Wallingford, since he was 12 – and all from the same shop.

Mr Nash has a learning disability, and although he has his own home, he decided he did not feel safe there because of the pandemic. Two weeks ago he moved in with his cousin in Kidlington.

And while he was keen to carry on delivering in his new village, he could not get a job there, so switched delivering papers for volunteering to clean up the streets.

Mr Nash's cousin, Francesca Jardine, 29, grew up with Mr Nash, and inspired his new passion for keeping Kidlington clean.

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She said: “I’m a bit of a planet lover and I do litter picking.

“He is now absolutely obsessed with it and he litter picks all around Kidlington every single day, twice a day.

"He probably collects about six bags a day of litter. He then goes to recycle around the council bins.”

Ms Jardine has made sure he looks the part and has made him a bespoke litter picking outfit – earning him the reputation of ‘litter king’.

She said: “We have made him a coat and we call him the 'litter king'.

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"He has his litter picking sticks and he looks very professional.”

She added: “He is getting well known around Kidlington as our little hero. He gets free drinks at the shop, and he goes around the pub car parks where they bring him drinks sometimes.”

She said Mr Nash was a hard worker –whether delivering the Oxford Mail or picking litter.

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“This guy never has a day off, even if he is sick," she said. "He used to get up at three in the morning every day and go out on his paper round at five in the morning, rain, wind, hail or snow.”

Ms Jardine’s sister, Leanne Higgs, 39, from Headington, praised Mr Nash for litter picking in Oxford too.

She said the community in Berinsfield had been sad to see him leave after delivering their Oxford Mail for so many years.

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She said: “He enjoyed it massively. He has served some of the same people for 45 years.

“He has served and delivered the papers to people who are now well into their 90s and in care homes

He goes all the way to Wallingford on the bus to go and visit a 95-year-old woman who he has been delivering her paper to for all that time.”

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Mr Nash will be writing notes to deliver to the Berinsfield community to let them know he has left the paper boy job and to say goodbye.

Ms Higgs added: “Everyone loves him so much. He is so kind to everyone he is not just the paper boy.”