ECCENTRIC street cleaner Dawn Morrill is loved by children and ducks alike for her unusual outfit, cart decorations and occasional life-saving activities.

Dawn, 42, is Stamford Bridge's street cleaner and as well as providing a peculiar visual spectacle for the younger residents of the town, she is also a guardian to ducklings which stray onto the road.

Her cart is plastered with stickers, including some Pokmon characters, and she also has decorations left over from Halloween.

To add to the confusion Dawn does her rounds in a Western Australian bush hat and bush coat bought by her husband Ian as an anniversary present.

Ian, 32, said: "We wanted to emigrate to Australia but we couldn't afford it so when Dawn saw the hat and coat at a car boot sale she asked if she could have them as her anniversary present and I thought it would make a good consolation prize.

"Quite a few drivers have to have a second look because they don't think of it as a job for a woman but I think it's great because she meets a lot of people in the village."

Dawn said: "I have a fancy wheel barrow with that many stickers on it and a skeleton hanging off and a demented duck on the top. At Christmas time I get it completely decked out in tinsel and the kids love it."

The Pokmon stickers have been rejected by Dawn's youngest son Reece, eight. She has two other sons Nathan, 18, and Ryan, 14 who are supportive of her work.

"They don't worry too much about mum's street cred as long as they've got their own," she said.

But the outfit often causes confusion especially among the children.

Dawn said: "There are a few kids that aren't quite sure what I am. One little girl asked her mum if I was a man or a woman and a little boy once called me the bin man lady.

"I think it's the hat."

Meanwhile Bryan Lawson, a Stamford Bridge town councillor, said: "She does a first class job and we are all very fond of her."