2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak.

[DaveP]

I remember him getting quite animated as I'd taken some corned beef sandwiches with me to eat on the journey.

We used to fish a lovely piece of river on a local farm (my pb Barbel at 15lb) but the farmer banned anyone using tinned luncheon meat in case it caused F&M.

Couple of other odd things:
The son of a friend was a trainee vet - they were conscripted and given an inordinate salary to do nothing more than put animals down during the F&M outbreak.

At the same time a local farmer was sending cattle from Surrey to Scotland and back through the outbreak so that the beef got a "Scottish reared" sticker. And they were only on Scottish soil for 2 days before going to one of the biggest supermarkets.

In the last outbreak another local farm had one half of land locked down and the other half of the farm, divided only by a narrow lane, fully open. I don't think anyone told all the deer we have around here!

[Saffron]

To some extent the 1967 F&M epidemic is the one that sticks in my mind more. I was at a little village junior school then, and a small farm about 100yds from the school had it and all the livestock (mainly cattle) were destroyed. The farmer had 2 daughters that were at the school with me and everybody was devastated. Some thing like that in a little village where there was a close community spirit really hit home as we knew how hard the farmer worked.

In the 2001 epidemic a few farms in the area got F&M, including one about 2 miles away with a very large dairy herd, I do not remember the number but I know that several hundred cattle were destroyed at just that single farm.

Hopefully we will never see the like again.


Changing subject I am very impressed with DaveP having a PB barbel of 15lb, that is a very impressive fish and one to be proud of

Evan