Mathematics is often taught covertly as a "service" subject in geography departments, but can often be a cause of fear for students who may not have studied the subject post-GCSE. Negative attitudes are common and many students show signs of maths anxiety. This paper details how students' attitudes were changed by a new foundation mathematics course which taught numeracy in an applied context. By starting at an appropriate baseline level and working in a small-group teaching environment, overall feedback scores from module evaluation forms increased from 1.5/5.0 to 4.4/5.0 (where 1 is poor and 5 is good) over a period of two years. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)