Staff at one Suffolk library got a surprise when they discovered a cleaner carrying out a deep clean had put all the books back in size order.

After Krystal Vittles, a staff member at Newmarket Library tweeted about the well-meaning mistake, her tweet went viral, attracting thousands of likes and retweets.

She said in her original tweet: “The cleaner has started deep-cleaning the space (so far, so good) and has cleaned the shelves, but has put 18.5 bays of books back IN SIZE ORDER.”

Staff saw the funny side - and thought the story had struck a chord because people were looking for light-hearted stories during lockdown.

A Suffolk Libraries spokesman said: “It appears the cleaner at Newmarket Library was taking the opportunity to give the shelves a thorough clean – nothing to do with coronavirus, it’s just good to give the shelves a thorough clean whilst the library is closed.

READ MORE - Harry Potter treats for families during lockdown“No-one else was around due to the social distancing rules. Unfortunately the books were put back in size order rather than by genre/alphabetical order.”

The spokesman added: “It’ll take us a bit of time to reorganise them but we can all see the funny side. Our staff are running lots of library activities online for our regular customers at the moment but sadly it looks like libraries will be closed for a while, so we’ll have plenty of time to sort the books out.

“The cleaner is lovely and does a great job in the library. It was an honest mistake and just one of those things so we would never want her to feel bad about it. We’ve all been a bit bewildered at how much interest there has been in the story – I think it has been retweeted about 40,000 times. I think people are just pleased to be able to share any light-hearted stories at the moment as it helps to cheer everyone up.

“Don’t worry, all the books will be back in the right order ready for our customers when we’re open again!”