We were sent to a farm in the small hamlet of Newton Tracey. There was a number of beef cattle, and lots of sheep. The sheep were lambing, and most of them were in a big shed.
The drovers had arrived on farm before us, and got organised to do the cattle first. When Tony and I arrived with Nigel in hot pursuit we were greeted at the gate by the usual police panda car and hire car containing two members of the RMP. Unusually for the RMP's, they got out of their car to greet us.
I explained who we were, and what we were going to do, and left them with a single instruction;
"Until we have finished, no-one is to come onto this farm, especially in white suits."
I thought I'd explained myself clearly, and we moved off down a sloped concrete track to the farm buildings.
There was a large empty silage clamp which we were going to use to kill the cattle, which were mostly in covered yards. The drovers had done their usual good job of setting everything up ready; an improvised race made from gates, a crush, and some more gates to allow the cattle to get into the silage clamp once they'd been sedated.
Everything went off smoothly to start with. The cattle were put through the crush by one drover, injected by Nigel, and then let through into the silage clamp by the other drover. Tony worked alone in the silage clamp stunning and pithing the cattle once they'd gone to sleep.
Mac was pushing the cattle into the crush, and warned Nigel and I that there was one 'lively' animal amongst them; the animal in question still had one testicle due to an error when it was castrated. That 'one ball' made him a bit more of a handful, and we all kept an eye on him.
It was nearly the turn of the 'rogue' animal to go into the crush, and Mac was maneuvering him towards the race, when suddenly, with no warning, two people in white suits came wandering down the concrete slope towards us.
All hell broke loose, as the animal panicked, and lept over the gates forming the race. Finding himself back in a covered yard, but alone, he ran up and down the concrete slipping over several times.
The team, with our usual efficiency, raced into action. Mac shouted to let the others out, and Nigel and I started to untie the gates to allow all the cattle back into the covered yard with the now mad rogue bullock. As we let the others through, the 'one ball' threw himself over the feed barrier that went down the middle of the covered yard, and I had a feeling of doom about it all.
"Lets give them all ten minutes to calm down, and then try and do him first" Mac sensibly suggested.
While all this was going on, the two 'white suits', both bearing clipboards, had continued to walk towards us, oblivious to the chaos they had caused.
Furious, I turned and let rip;
"Who the f*cking hell are you two idiots?" I bawled.
Identification was proffered, and ignored, and they explained that they were from Page Street (MAFF HQ in London), and had come down to assess health and safety during slaughter.
"Well we are all healthy, and everything was safe until you idiots came wandering onto the farm without permission. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was for us all?"
They obviously didn't, but the message was sinking in.
"Come with me" I said, as I marched past them towards the farm gate.
The two RMP soldiers on the gate had a similar, and possibly more graphic bollocking, and I offered to provide the two clipboards a blue suit on condition that they didn't come back onto the farm until we'd finished the cattle.
I walked back down to the farm buildings, and left the two Londoners at the gate, busily talking to people on mobile phones. I imagined that they were complaining about me, but was past caring.
Back to the cattle, who by now were looking calm, we decided that we needed to get the rogue bullock out of the way so that he didn't wind the others up too much. The whole team climbed in, and we planned to get him into the crush, give him the sedative, and then wait for it to start to take effect before letting him into the silage clamp.
It was all looking like it was going to work, but suddenly, he decided not to play. He flattened part of our temporary race and then charged across the covered yard straight towards the feed barrier. Having previously jumped the feed barrier, we all expected him to do the same, but this time he just put his head down and tried to charge straight through it.
Stunned, and stuck, the animal had jammed his head between the bars of the feeder. Like lightening, Tony and I both grabbed a gun and headed towards him. Tony got there first, and leaped over the barrier to face the animal head on. He quickly loaded his gun and shot the animal. The whole thing probably took twenty seconds, but my heart was in my throat.
We all took a minute or five to calm down, and then sorted out the rest of the cattle without event.
The farmer, unaware of our difficulties, appeared with a cup of tea for us all. It was very welcome, and we spent a few minutes explaining the full implications of being on 'form A' restriction. We could license him off the farm to go shopping or whatever, but not until slaughter and initial disinfection was completed.
"Fish and Chips" he said.
"What?"
"I was going to get you all some fish and chips."
"That's ok," I said, "if you need anything like that today, we'll send the army. It's about time they did something useful".
The farmer wanted a few bits and pieces, and had set his heart on getting us all some food, so I went and asked the two soldiers to pop into town for him.
"We're under orders not to leave the farm until slaughter is completed" was the reply.
Annoyed, I walked back down to the farm buildings.
"Don't worry," I told the farmer, "I'll send one of our lads as soon as we've finished."
"I know," the farmer said, "I'll get a neighbour to go in for me and leave it all at the gate".
I felt guilty. It was bad enough that he was insisting on feeding us all, the least we could do was to get his shopping for him.
We moved into a large dutch barn that had been set up as a lambing shed. As usual, the drovers had penned up the sheep and started to seperate the lambs. The noise was intense.
Tony and I got on with the grim task in hand, and soon got the job finished. By now it was dark, and we knew that there was no way we could kill some of the older lambs that had been put out to grass with their mothers. There was also the usual hurdle problem, so we instructed the army to organise hurdles for the following day, and made our way to the farmhouse.
After washing off the worst of the blood and filth of the day, we sat down at the farmhouse table for fish and chips out of the paper. It was a welcome bite after a long day, and the farmer and I reminissed about my childhood times in the area. He'd known me since I was four or five years old, and I felt terrible about what he was now going through. He told me that day that he was 'getting out', and he did.
About five years later, I joined some family and friends for a meal in a pub very near that farm. It was after the smoking ban, because when I went outside for a cigarrette, a familiar voice spoke to me.......
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