Ensuring the survival of traditional countryside skills and crafts is the aim of the Devon Rural Skills Trust.

The non-profit charity, which depends on the contribution of its volunteer members, is very much a 'hands-on' organisation.

Sandy Backus said there are a range of courses in which tuition is offered, including hedge steeping (laying), dry-stone walling, stone-faced hedging, turf hedging, cobblestoning, cob walling, rake making, pole lathing, cleft and wattle hurdle making and other green woodcrafts.

His son, Alastair, who has been a volunteer for DRST for four years as well as one for the Devon Wildlife Trust, is a physiotherapist by profession, from Chagford, but enjoys, in his spare time, something completely different from his working environment.

He said: 'It is very important, if not vital, to teach and encourage young people in particular the skills just to keep the Devon countryside looking as beautiful as it is. We cannot takes these skills for granted and the Devon Rural Skills Trust is a great way to encourage these traditional ways of maintaining our countryside.'