PRAISE must go this week to the farmer, stonemason and supporters of the bid to reinstate Wensleydale’s famous ‘Murder Stone’.

That they have been successful in restoring the stone after it was smashed to smithereens by a car is testament to their hard work and their desire to keep a piece of Dales history alive.

The stone, inscribed with the deliciously Yorkshire-blunt message; ‘Do No Murder’, is now back where it belongs thanks in no small part to the efforts of farmer Peter Fall and stonemason David France.

It is a wonderful example of people coming together to fix a problem that wasn’t necessarily theirs to fix.

Mr Fall could easily have ignored the broken stone and Mr France could have charged a prohibitive fee, but the pair just got on and got the job done.

So as well as serving as a constant reminder that murder should not be done, the stone now also represents the can-do attitude of Yorkshire folk.

Too often these days that people don’t want to take responsibility for matters within their own communities.

Of course there are the bands of volunteers who do litter pick, run charities and generally make the world a better place - and they must be applauded - but there are also those all too happy to sit back and let the council or the police or, basically, anyone else, to take the burden of responsibility for whatever ails them.

The government’s much-maligned ‘Big Society’ drive may well have been a ruse to cover the loss of local services by transferring the responsibility to everyday folk. But people simply working together to get stuff done is a wonderful thing.