I’ve made Tidy Street the tidiest in town

Keith Johnson, 58, has scrubbed Brighton’s streets for 20 years.

He is known for his forensic deep-cleaning.

With his broom and trowel, he has scraped out bagfuls of weeds from cracks in the pavement and left Tidy Street sparkling clean.

He said: “I reckon this is the tidiest street in the city now. Other sweepers will just brush the streets down. You don’t have to get between the paving slabs for this job, but I get a kick out of it. At the end of the day, I don’t like seeing it get dirty.

“I’m mostly chipping off bits of moss with my trowel. Seagulls use it for their nests, and flick it all over the road, so it grows everywhere. I don’t mind. I just sweep it up. There’s not a lot you can do.”

Mr Johnson said he enjoys talking to those passing by. He said: “I meet people all the time who say how tidy it is since I’ve been working here.

“I’ve been cleaning this patch for about four months. I get a lot of nice compliments for taking all the weeds out.

“There’s an elderly couple in Foundry Street who say they can tell when I’ve been because it’s squeaky clean.

“I get on well with everybody, they’re all very polite. It’s the people that make this job great.

Mr Johnson said he used to work as a “scarab”, the rider of a mobile cleaning machine.

Now, he says, he is “on a barrow”... pushing a trolley and cleaning by hand.

He said: “It’s the job for me. I’ve always worked outside. I couldn’t work in an office or in a shop. It would do my head in.

“I’m not going to stop the weeds – they always come back again. But I love it when I’m out. You’re your own boss.”

Mr Johnson said he struggles to leave his work behind him when he gets home.

“I do a bit of tidying in the garden. I cut the grass, and what I can’t get with the lawnmower, my wife Susan sees to it with a pair of scissors. We keep it looking nice.”