AT any time on any day between October and April, eight gritter drivers are on standby to spread a small mountain of salt on Swindon’s roads.

All volunteers, they are drawn from the council’s highway maintenance crews and can find themselves called into action at any hour of the day or night.

Tuesday night was typical of the recent severe cold snap, with the volunteers going home after gruelling day job shifts and then being summoned back to work at 6pm.

It was 8.30am yesterday before the last of them signed off and crawled home to the bed he hadn’t seen in more than 24 hours.

The man in overall charge of the teams and their support crews is Richard Hedges, 53, a fifth generation Swindonian who labours under both the huge responsibility, and ponderous title, of highways and civil engineering operations manager with Swindon Council’s commercial services arm.

He said: “What I tell people when we’re training for this job is that they are saving lives.

“Can you imagine what would happen if all the roads went ungritted?”

Of course, people who know or suspect that their own particular road or local stretch of pavement hasn’t been gritted might find that question galling, especially if they’ve lately come a cropper on a frozen surface.

However, Richard is armed to the teeth with pertinent facts to dispel the myths and misconceptions.

For example, not every street in Swindon is gritted, although all the most vital ones are.

These are divided among two lists of routes.

The ‘A’ list features the borough’s busiest transport arteries and takes priority while the ‘B’ list comprises slightly less important ones.

There are seven routes on each list, each of which takes two hours or more to cover.

On Tuesday night, the ‘A’ list was gritted three times, while the ‘B’ list was treated twice.

With nine vehicles available, it is impossible to treat every inch of every road and pavement but special arrangements are made for potential problem areas such as pedestrianised zones and hills.

There is also a network of more than 300 grit bins in such areas, whose contents can be used by the public.