When Chris Cowie complained to the council about graffiti in his neighbourhood he was told they didn't have the resources to tackle it. So he took his own pot of paint and headed for a nearby telecoms box.

"There was one quite offensive tag so I thought I'll paint over that," Chris says.

"I liked what I did so I thought 'right, I'll see what else I can do'."

Chris, a retired teacher who has lived in the Portobello area of Edinburgh for more than 50 years, says the council didn't object and, in fact, they gave him a pot of paint so it was more in keeping with their colour scheme.

He used the paint to cover graffiti tags "anywhere that needed it" - on communications boxes, telephone boxes and the local police box.

"It's a beautiful part of Edinburgh and I want to keep it that way," Chris says.