Experiencing the culls

The Health and Social Consequences of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic in North Cumbria

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Experiencing the culls

The culls were completely outwith ordinary experience and for many, the memory is enduring. A respondent from Group 3 (also a farmer) never refers directly in diary or interview to what took place on the farm during the cull, but refers instead to that day, shorthand which assumes an understanding of a wealth of meaning:

Those people that didn’t lose their stock, they don’t have their memories of that day … from the cull onwards we were lucky if we had three, four hours of constant sleep, […] you were just lying there, you know just thinking of, about what had gone on really.

As in times of war, sources of information become critical :

…. we got all our information from Radio Cumbria [hourly bulletins] and often you knew 8 out of those 9 people and you know it was hard to deal with

(Agricultural related, interview, 2002)

On returning to work:

A very emotional week, especially on Tuesday. […] Saw many people whom I have not seen for 12 months. Very good to see and chat to them, but when some asked ‘Did your stock survive?’, then memories all came flooding back.

(Diary 2002)

On the anniversary of the cull, 2 years on, the respondent writes:

Don"t look forward to this week in the end of April. 27 - 28th April 2001 has awful memories

(Diary 2003)

Another farmer described enduring the experience of the cull:

you just have to block it all off as far as I was concerned.

And the realities of decomposition:

And the smell you could hardly breathe like. […] by the Saturday they were just all coming apart , […] they were that heavy in lamb, if you just touched them they just exploded.

(Farm interview 2002)

A year later his memories are still vivid, when for 5 weeks he recalls the events of the previous year in his diary:

This time last year the nightmare had begun […] it was certainly the worst week of my farming life.

(Diary 2002)

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