Yes, they slaughtered them quite quickly if I remember rightly but they laid for nearly a fortnight in the buildings. They were totally disorganised. They went in and they killed them just where they stood. Some were in the cubicles, some still had their heads through the feeding areas , and they said that they laid so long they were all blown up [tails]. . . . . in the reports of what had happened.
[Community]
It got me particularly at work, when I say work, the Tourist Information Centre because I am the Manager there, so not only do I have to look after myself, I have to look after my staff’s interests as well and try and buoy them up. Um, but there hasn’t been any visible support from anybody really, including our line management, throughout, and yet we’re face to face with the public, all day, every day. So um it was difficult at some stage and you know, we were making things up on the hoof, most of which were OK but one or two things we did were, in hindsight, not so good.
[Health and veterinary]
I think my worst moment was when we had a meeting of all the team, there was briefing meetings, and there was a briefing meeting of TVIs [Temporary Veterinary Inspectors] and at the end of the day if you were there, you went. After Nick Brown stood up and he said he was going to slaughter everything in Cumbria that was within three kilometres. He meant it. He meant it. Everything, cattle, sheep, pigs, everything within three kilometres. And there were dead bodies everywhere, there were twelve report cases that farmers had phoned in saying, we think we’ve got foot and mouth, we’d like a vet to see it, and there weren’t vets to go and see them.
[Farm]
They couldn’t get them out of the sheds, it was terrible and then when they did come, a lot of the operators of the machines weren’t terribly professional I don’t think, they did rather a lot of damage to his farm. I mean it’s all been put right since, it will have cost them a fortune to repair it but, well I mean David was on the television, he rang the television up he couldn’t cope with it. He’s got young daughters and the animals were lying in the booths. You could see them from the kitchen windows..
[Health and veterinary]
. . . . and then Nick Brown stands up and says he’s going to slaughter all the rest of these animals, and I argued quite passionately, I think is the word, in that meeting with the DVM [Director of Veterinary Medicine] that, he couldn’t get the report cases seen, he couldn’t get the animals that were ill slaughtered, he couldn’t get rid of the disposed, so how was he going to get these ones done, you know and his response was, “the Minister has said it so we will carry it out”, and I very nearly thumped him. I was completely wound up.