A PAIR of crime-fighting grandmothers are mirroring TV sleuths Rosemary and Thyme by cracking down on anti-social behaviour in their village.

All dynamic duo Ethel Cummings and Pauline Gates wanted was to make their village a decent place for their grandchildren to grow up.

But their crime-cutting campaign to tackle vandals and louts plaguing their neighbours has proved so successful that places across the UK now want to learn from the pair.

Mrs Cummings, 71, and Mrs Gates, 58, made a pact with local police and Durham City Council to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in the former pit village of Ushaw Moor.

The scheme is the first of its kind in the UK and has been so successful that Mrs Cummings and Mrs Gates, the secretary and chairwoman of the village's residents' association, have been on a crime-busting tour.

The pair said they were driven to act because their children and grandchildren were growing up in the former mining community.

And like Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme, played by Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris, they will not rest until they have found a solution to crime in their village.

Mrs Cummings has been a councillor and magistrate for the village, and her sons and grandchildren live in Ushaw Moor.

Mrs Gates, who has a sister, son and a daughter in the village, feels just as strongly.

They decided to draw up a contract explaining what they wanted the council and police to do.

Since then, Mrs Cummings and Mrs Gates have been asked to speak to groups in Blackpool and Manchester.

And a year since they started work, Sergeant Colin Williamson, of Durham Police, believes there has been a significant improvement in the area.

He said: "It was mostly low-level crime and the fear of crime. They had vacant property, graffiti, nuisance neighbours and problems with anti-social behaviour."