Suddenly Exeter was starting to look more organised.
The control room was moved into a portacabin in the car park, and each day they would issue the patrol vets with a list of sites to visit, and the slaughter teams would collect their gruesome list.
Staff who by now had been away from home for more than a month, could drop off their dirty washing, and collect it the next day, neatly folded and ironed. It was a small thing, but it helped.
As a team, we moved from job to job and killed stock morning, noon, and night. It was a relentless task, but we did it well. At no point was animal welfare compromised by us, and we always tried to treat the farmers with compassion. Somehow, it was easier when you could walk away at the end of the slaughter, and leave the IP vet to sort out the mess.
Nigel, as the slaughter vet, carried out the 'vetrinary' work. He signed the paperwork, injected the cattle, and oversaw the slaughter. Jim and Mac as our 'drovers' moved the stock around, operated crushes, and assisted with the hard labour of it all. Without our drovers, we would have been stuck. They were both 'cattle men' and knew how to handle stock properly.
Tony, as contract slaughterman, did the killing. As we'd come to expect, he was totally professional, and I don't remember him ever making any errors with the killing.
Me? My job was a bit more vague. I organised everything, and assisted Nigel with the administration of sedatives. If there was no sedation to be done, I mucked in with Tony and acted as another slaughterman.
At a glance, anyone who knew us at the time would have known that we did not feature in any of those photos. We refused to wear the white suits that became notorious as time went on. Nigel and I were strongly of the opinion that white suits spooked cattle, and our opinion caused more than one argument with some of the Vets at Exeter.
There were also some differences in the actual way we carried out the slaughter. Adult cattle and youngstock were sedated using 'Rompun'. We were told to inject 2-3 ml of sedative; we gave most 5ml. Dairy cows would be run through the milking parlour to get their injection; it was easier for them and us as they were used to going through there and remained much calmer.
Calves were not sedated. There was no need. We could walk amongst them and kill them without too much fuss, and we didn't want to move them around any more than was necessary.
Sheep were penned up in groups, and again, the two of us would get into the pen and drop them where they stood. No fuss, no un-necessary handling, just quiet efficient slaughter.
The biggest problem at that time was the lack of logistics. Pressure washers were like gold dust, and dead bodies stacked up on farms. We also had difficulty with the basic requirements for slaughter. Rompun was in short supply, as were pith canes, guns, ammunition and disinfectant.
When we were given our list of jobs, I would go to the stores and draw the kit. If we had 300 sheep to kill, we were issued with 300 humane killer blanks. Virkon was in such short supply that it started to come in plain buckets, and then just plastic bags.
The talk in the hotel at nights was mainly about the failure of Exeter to run the job properly. There was a shortage of vehicles, diggers, lorries, pressure washers and lots of other basic stuff. The general consensus of opinion was that the army should be brought in, with all their resources.
One morning I went to the stores to draw our gear for the day.
"Sorry, we haven't got any humane killer blanks left."
We had a list of 4 or 5 farms to do, and we were stuck. I made a phone call to a gunsmith I knew to ask if he had any blanks in stock. He did, and put them to one side for me.
That was the way it was then. If you couldn't get what you needed, you either sat around waiting, or sorted it yourself.
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