Plodding on....

The relentless killing continued.

One morning, we were handed a slaughter sheet for one of Nigels former clients.

"This one might be difficult.  He's coniguous, and is refusing to let us kill."

"He's one of my clients" Nigel informed them.

"We know, that's why you've got it."

We decided to get the team to wait off farm while Nigel and I went on to talk to the farmer.  

He was a batchelor, who lived alone on the farm with his elderly mother.  After a tense phone call, he agreed to talk to Nigel.  His main objection was that the animals would be left on the farm and upset his mother.  Nigel offered to try and pull some strings to get the bodies removed quickly.

Exeter were contacted, and informed of the situation.  They agreed to have transport waiting while we killed so that the stock could be moved as soon as we were finished.

Reluctantly, the farmer agreed.  He made it clear that he was only agreeing because he trusted Nigel.

We went on farm and carried out an uneventful slaughter.  It was a small dairy herd, with a few followers, and went off without a hitch.  As usual the team worked well together, and it didn't take long.

As we were finishing, Nigel took a call from the office.  They wouldn't be able to move the animals that day after all.  It seemed that the army were relying on transport resources that they didn't actually have.

After receiving assurances from the transport co-ordinator that the dead animals would be removed the following day, we broke the news to the farmer.

Another phone call, and we were sent about 15 miles away to another awkward job.  The report was that the farmer had threatened to kill anyone from the ministry that tried to get onto his farm.  He wasn't happy because he didn't agree that he was contiguous.

Great.

We sat down with the team and discussed the best way of dealing with the situation.  Suddenly, Mac noticed the name of the farm on the notebook in front of us.

"I know him....."

"Do you?  Is he likely to get nasty?"

"Um, yes.  He's a big bloke with a bigger temper."

We all sat in silence, wondering what to do for the best.

"Let me go and see him first" Mac said.  "I don't think he'll kick off with me"

I looked at Mac, a huge man, and agreed.  It would be a brave man you tackled Mac.

He headed off, and we cleaned up and drove nearer the farm.  

Sat in a layby, my phone rang.

"It's me boss.  He's OK, but not happy.  You can come on farm, but tell everyone not to try and talk to him; he could fly off the handle at any minute."

We drove to the farm gate and got organised.

Mac had spent the time since his phone call walking around the farm with the farmer and explaining what was going to happen.  The dairy herd was out at grass, and all the youngstock were housed in loose boxes around the yard.

Mac stopped us going any further onto the farm.

"He wants to get the cows in himself.  I told him that the team would stay out of the way until he was ready."

"OK Mac, we'll wait here quietly.  Give us the nod when he's ready."

The farmer and Mac went and got the cows.  They wanderered into the yard, looking a bit perplexed about what they thought was an early afternoon milking.

The farmer; of similar size to Mac, walked down through the holding yard and patted each cow individually, as he turned, I saw the tears rolling down his cheeks.  I looked away, holding back the tears myself, and none of the team could look at each other.

The farmer walked past us, with still not a word spoken to anyone in the team except Mac, and slammed the farmhouse door shut behind him.

After a pause, the team swung into action.  Mac went into the parlour with Nigel to sedate, and Tony and I waited for the cows to arrive in the barn we were going to kill them in.  

They arrived ten at a time, and we quickly and quietly got on with stunning and pithing each one.  The whole team were subdued, and hardly a word passed between us all.  We didn't need to talk, we all knew what to do.

The cows were all dead, and unusually for us, we decided to sedate the youngstock before slaughtering them.  There were quite a few young calves, the farm had been on form D restrictions for a while, and no stock had left the farm.

With everything dead, Tony and I took our usual last walk around.  Nigel and the Drovers waited for us, and we all set off for the vehicles.

As we walked past the farmhouse, a window was thrown open and we all heard a shout.

Nervously, I looked around to see the farmers head sticking out of the window.

"You'll all have something to eat before you go" he said.

We didn't have time to stop, but none of us felt strong enough to refuse.

In the farmhouse, we found a large table, weighed down with a spread of food that would have done any wedding breakfast proud.  The farmer and his wife had obviously spent the time that we were killing their herd preparing food for us.

We all picked at bits of food; not because we weren't hungry, but because it didn't feel right.  The whole time we were there, the farmer sat in a chair in the corner of the kitchen crying.

It was terrible.

We had done this, and we all felt bad.

Three weeks afterwards, Nigel had a phone call off the farmer who's stock was supposed to be collected the day after we had killed it.  He was distraught.  The animals were still there, and no-one had been in touch.

Phone calls were made, and we found out that the farm had been forgotten.  The civil servants blamed the army, and the army blamed the civil servants.

It was just another example of the shambles that was Exeter RSC at that time.