Falmouth primary school pupils have been getting their hands dirty at Queen Mary Gardens where they have helped plant thousands of crocus bulbs in recognition of Rotary International's support of the End Polio Now campaign.

The 15,000 bulbs have been donated by Falmouth Rotary Club, whose members have been helping the children with their epic task, along with Matt Stannard and Howard Burns from Cormac, and community engagement offficer, Jacqui Owen.

Pupils from St Mary's, St Francis, Marlborough and King Charles Schools have been hard at work in the beach-side garden while youngsters from Falmouth Primary Academy will get their turn after half term when they will descend on Kimberley Park armed with spades and bulbs.

Last week was chosen to start the planting as October 24 is World Polio Day and all the donated bulbs will produce purple flowers as that is the colour of the ink that every vaccinated child has imprinted on their little finger.

When Rotary International's began its support of the scheme to eradicate polio in 1985, around 1,000 new cases were reported every day. This had dropped to one new case every day in 2014 and last year saw only 70 cases reported across the whole year.

Falmouth Rotary Club has always supported to the international campaign and is keen to spread the word and raise awareness. Rotarian John Pearce said of the planting initiative: "The idea is that hopefully they will flower around the end of February because February 23 is Rotary's birthday when it will be 107-years-old.

"We had hoped to eradicate polio by our 100th birthday, but now we very much hope to stop any new cases within the next two years."