VOLUNTEERS this week opened the doors of a friendship centre for the thousands of seasonal migrant workers who come to Herefordshire each year.

Helpers running the centre for the fruit pickers at Leominster's Moravian Church hall declared themselves utterly charmed by the "extremely polite" visitors who called in for coffee and information.

More than 3,000 seasonal workers from Russia, Bulgaria and other East European countries are now in place at S & A's Marden and Brierley strawberry farms.

The majority of more than 2,000 - which includes a first-time contingent of Bulgarians, 600 in number - are at Brierley.

On Monday, as they attended the official re-opening of the friendship centre run by Leominster Churches Together, such problems were far from the minds of Mary and Olga, two 19-year-old students from the Siberian region of Russian.

"We love to go shopping," said Olga. "We will be going to Hereford to buy clothes and cosmetics."

Returning to pick Herefordshire strawberries for a second season were Vladimir Kornienko, a 21-year-old student in telecommunications and his friend Andrey Shturma, 20, a state railways student, both from Siberia.

They said picking fruit under the increasingly hot polytunnels from 4am was "hard work" - but there was plenty of time to enjoy swimming and football and they were planning trips to other parts of the UK.

Leominster Mayor Brettina Meadows welcomed the guest workers to the area and praised the 60 local volunteers who are staffing the friendship centre on a rota basis.

Plans are also afoot to help the visitors meet local people. Sports clubs were being approached to get the East Europeans involved in friendly matches.