20 years since Foot and Mouth

[stanleycamel]

It is 20 years since the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease which started just outside of Newcastle. I remember it well - you could see the plumes of smoke from the dead carcasses from almost everywhere in the west end of the city and could be seen burning by anyone travelling along the A69 to Hexham and beyond. I remember driving along the A1 very late at night for weeks following convoys of closed lorries carrying their loads for burial.

It was just awful and very sad.

[Vanillapod]

Blimey was it really? Our offices were in old farm buildings back then and we had to walk through troughs to get in and out.

[Guest]

I was doing some work in rural Wales at the time. It was horrific.

It's amazing to me that it was 20 years ago - it feels much more recent.

[YorkshireT]

This totally passed me by to be honest at the time, I know it was a disaster.

[Rac20]

Wow! Cant believe it’s been so long. DH (boyfriend at the time) and I went on a trip organised by the local courier to Dublin. Our coach got stopped and searched and we had to take all our luggage off for it to be checked when we arrived in Ireland.

[Mr Tom Morrow]

I was with George Wimpey when we had the contract for burning during a swine vesicular outbreak in the 1970’s.
We were contracted to dig pits, fill them with old railway sleepers and diesel then wait for the carcasses.
Sad to see. The fires could be seen all over South Wales.

I will say however that never have so many workers had freezers full of pork in their lives!

[ChrisS]

Aye, remember it well. Living in the country I saw, on more than one occasion, cattle/sheep on their feet with vehicles/people around them, on my way home I'd see them down. Whilst unfortunate, as many would've been abbatoir slaughtered for meat it was likely the open-ness of the slaughter/burning that many found shocking.

Saw the farmer, Mr Waugh being interviewed, continuing to believe he did nothing wrong, even tho he had previously been thrown off an East Bolden farm due to the appalling conditions of his livestock. He claimed he saved many farmers from bankruptcy as they received at least twice the value of their stock. The video of Waugh's pigs twitching, dead and dying amongst waste was incredibly shocking and indefensible.

[Gryff]

My sisters in laws were so lucky they were not affected but had family members who lost flocks and breeding stock it taken years to establish

[The Muppets]

The plumes, smell and fear.
I remember some of the children on the local farms didn’t go to nursery or school as the parents didn’t want to risk the spread despite the troughs that were common as a precaution.

I think every zoo and farm park in Scotland also closed.

[bandofox]

I remember it all too well, my daughter was born in feb 2001 and we went on holiday to Devon when she was 6 weeks old.

My 3 year old son kept asking why all the animals were sleeping in the gateways
Luckily he was asleep the time we went past them being loaded into the trucks!