Where angels fear to tread

Darren Clark's day only draws to an end when he's loaded 47 bags of dog faeces into his van. Yes, it's a dirty job, but no, he's never stepped in it, he tells Julia Stuart. Oops...

Darren Clark insists that no one has ever refused to shake his hand. But as a professional dog-dirt collector, he can understand why some might be reluctant. "At first I thought, 'Ahh, I'm going to get me hands covered in it', but it doesn't work like that. I've never had any on me hands," says the environmental health officer, who has to squeeze his 6ft 9in frame behind the wheel of his van. "The only problem we get is Bonfire Night, when the kids decide to blow the dog-poo bins up by putting fireworks in them. It's a bit messy. I have to get the old overalls and gloves on, get the grabber and grab it by hand. But apart from that, no problem. When I go home nobody has ever said, 'You smell of dog poo' or nowt."

Darren Clark insists that no one has ever refused to shake his hand. But as a professional dog-dirt collector, he can understand why some might be reluctant. "At first I thought, 'Ahh, I'm going to get me hands covered in it', but it doesn't work like that. I've never had any on me hands," says the environmental health officer, who has to squeeze his 6ft 9in frame behind the wheel of his van. "The only problem we get is Bonfire Night, when the kids decide to blow the dog-poo bins up by putting fireworks in them. It's a bit messy. I have to get the old overalls and gloves on, get the grabber and grab it by hand. But apart from that, no problem. When I go home nobody has ever said, 'You smell of dog poo' or nowt."

Clark is responsible for emptying Sheffield City Council's 100-odd dog-dirt bins, and taking their contents to an incinerator. Last year 15.8 tonnes of the stuff were collected. One might think twice about wearing open-toe sandals when visiting Sheffield.

Called "Dog Poo Darren" by his colleagues in environmental health, the 39-year-old volunteered for the job when the bins were installed three years ago. "It was the challenge," Clark says. "It was getting to a crisis point - everywhere you walked, you walked in dog faeces."

Like fishermen, pathologists and sewage men, Clark, an affable chap dressed in black trousers and T-shirt with just a dash of jewellery, can no longer smell his work. "I've got used to it. But when I first started it was terrible." Did it put him off his food? "No, no, no. It's like horse manure. When you've been spreading that a bit you feel hungry," he says. (He weighs 27 stone.)

We are zipping along in his customised van, which bears a picture of a large foot, a pile of dog poo and a cloud of flies. Next to it are the words: "Dog Owners Be Considerate - Scoop It Up!" Behind us, separating the front seats from the loading space, is a piece of chipboard, installed after Clark's colleagues complained about the smell whenever they borrowed the van. "When it rains, water gets into the dog bins. When you tie the bags up it seeps out, and that's probably what the smell in the van is. I wash it out every week and deodorise it," he insists. All this for £14,000 a year...

The smell isn't that bad, but as Clark points out, we haven't picked up any bags yet. "It'll get much more whiffy as the day goes on," he promises gaily. Clark is in a good mood, happy as a pig in the proverbial. He is, after all, doing a job that he loves.

"I thoroughly enjoy it. I think it's fulfilling. People say, 'Oh, I couldn't do a job like that', but until you've been there you don't know," says Clark, adding that girlfriends don't bat an eyelid. "I get to see all of Sheffield, more or less. I'm out in the fresh air. I meet people all the time. You couldn't wish for a better job."

If he spots a dog defecating, he waits to see if its owner picks the mess up. If not, he offers them a lemon-scented bag. Dog owners are supposed to put their hand inside, pick up the mess, tie the bag and place it in the bin. "I haven't had a refusal yet. I don't know whether it's my size what does it," says Clark, who once worked as a bouncer.

Despite having to walk around the bins all day, a spot where many dogs leave their deposits, Clark says he rarely treads in them. "My feet have got radar lights on them," he boasts, shaking a Nike trainer at me as we arrive in a park. He then promptly steps in some. The photographer, who has refused to travel in the back of Clark's van, is looking decidedly squeamish. "It's only waste, everyone does it!" Clark chastises, as he lifts the lid of one of the red bins and peers inside. "There's a loose un in there. It makes you think: 'How the bloody hell did that get in?'"

We head on to the city's Bolehill Park, of which Clark is particularly proud. "Bolehill was a mess. They've got two football pitches there. The footballers were complaining, the public was complaining. There was faeces everywhere. Within the last two years, 98 per cent of it has been clean," says Clark, who collects Star Wars memorabilia.

The park's cleanliness is also due, in part, to the self-styled "Bolehill Mafia", a group of local dog owners who meet there every day at 10am and who are more than happy to shame offenders. Marjorie Beddus, 75, is a retired telegraphist. She is sitting on a semi-charred bench, with a red lead around her neck. A group of dogs dart around her feet, their noses attached to each other's backsides. "Usually if you draw people's attention to what they've done, they'll pick it up. We always pick ours up. It's not horrible at all. You feed your dog one end, and it comes out the other," she says.

Pat Murphy, 66, a retired gas worker, is also on the lookout for foulers. "If I see anyone doing it, I tell them about it. The usual excuse is 'I haven't got a bag'. I've always got bags, so I offer them one. They don't like it; they pull a face when they're picking it up.

"It's second nature to me, I don't think anything about. The only time it smells is when you tread in it because it's been waiting to explode. But I don't eat a sandwich when I've just picked a dog mess up. I wait until I've washed my hands."

He does, however, draw a line at handling other dogs' poo. "I pick my own dog's up, but I'm not picking anyone else's up," he sniffs. Nor would Marjorie. "I wouldn't like to. When it's your own it's different," she explains.

We continue our tour of the city's parks, Clark pulling the white bags out of the bins, putting them into bigger yellow ones in the back of the van, and replacing the old bags. He doesn't wear gloves, he says, because he doesn't need to. The smell is beginning to sneak into the front of the van. After a while, goose pimples are running down my legs. It's hard to imagine but, apparently, it could be worse. "When the sun's beating down on the van it does boil in there. It starts cooking," Clark says. The city's Meersbrook Park is particularly gruesome, he adds. "There are a lot of vegetarians around there. I think they feed their dogs on veg, so the faeces is a lot smellier than anywhere else, unfortunately."

By the end of the afternoon, and after a visit to the bins at notorious Meersbrook, which are, indeed, decidedly pungent, there are 47 bags of dog excrement in the back of the van. For the last hour I have been keeping my nose firmly down the front of my jumper. We head towards the incinerator, and Clark merrily chucks the bags into a sealed container. "At least it keeps my hands warm in winter," he says.

As we say our goodbyes, I hesitate over the handshake. But then I bite the bullet, silently thanking God that it isn't Bonfire Night.

Darren Clark is featured on BBC 1's 'A Life of Grime', Monday at 9.30pm