An old friend.......

I carried on with Foot Patrol for a few days.  The time dragged, and I hated the constant feeling of wasting my time.

One morning, as I dodged my way past lots of busy looking people on my way to the control room, a familiar voice shouted out:

"MATT!  What are you doing here?"

The voice in question belonged to one of our local vets at home.  Nigel (not his real name) and I went back a bit.  In fact, I'd put a couple of horses down for clients of his.  He'd sold his practice quite recently, and had volunteered to work at Exeter as a 'TVI' (Temporary Veterinary Inspector) on FMD.

"To be honest, I'm not sure what the hell I'm doing Nige.  They've got me doing this bloody Foot Patrol nonsense, which I think is an absolute waste of time.  What are you up to?"

"I'm on Patrol," (not foot patrol, but surveillance patrol, which was checking stock) " or I would be if I had an assistant....."

"Is that an offer?"

"Why not!  I reckon we would make a good team!"

We marched into the control room, and Nigel announced to the staff that he would be working with me from now on and asked for his list for the day.

"You can't have Matt" one said.  "He's needed for foot patrol."

"Sod foot patrol" I said.  I will be far more use to Nigel, so you can find another mug to wander around annoying farmers.

That was it, we were off.

On the way out, Nigel asked if I had 'wets and whites'.  As I didn't, we stopped off at the stores and I was issued with a waterproof suit, some white coveralls, gloves and disinfectant.

"What vehicle have you got?" Nigel asked.

"A blue ministry van, it's over there..."

"Good, you can drive then."

'Patrol' involved going to various farms in the surveillance areas and checking the stock for clinical signs of Foot and Mouth disease.  We also had to licence livestock movements, and supervise any movements off 'Form D' premises.

At least I was doing something vaguely useful, and I enjoyed the company of my vet.

More Foot Patrol

A new day dawned, and I headed off once again for the Exeter office.

It was chaos as usual, so I mingled my way into the control room to find out what I was going to be doing that day.

"Ah, just the man we need!"

At last!  I was going to be doing something useful.

"Get yourself down to the epidemiology office straight away.  They need to talk to you about what you found yesterday."

I walked the length of the open plan office, and found the epidemiology room at the bottom.  Three earnest looking men were starring at a computer screen and mumbling to themselves.

They hadn't even noticed me walking in, so I let them know who I was and asked why they needed to speak to me.

"We just wanted to confirm the information you gave yesterday" one of them said.

"I can't understand how those pigs were missed by the other staff, I mean, 200 pigs in one field and no-one else spotted them."

"What bloody pigs?"

With that one of the other 'earnest'' looking men thrust my map in front of me and said:

"Those pigs!  You've written it down there, '200 hogs........ "

Confused, I stood looking blankly at the man.  Suddenly, it dawned on me.  He had an american accent!

"Those 'hogs' aren't pigs, they're sheep!"

"If they're sheep, then why the hell have you written 'hogs' ? "

I took some deep breaths......

"They are Hoggets.  I wrote 'hogs' for two reasons.  Firstly, there wasn't room on the map to write the whole word, and secondly because in Devon, Hoggets are commonly known as 'Hogs'.  How was I supposed to know that we had yanks here who couldn't understand English!"

Hurt, the man in question fired a shot back at me:

"If you knew the chaos you've caused here this morning you'd understand."

Now starting to get really annoyed, I walked out with one last passing shot:

"Haven't you silly sods heard of the telephone?  All you had to do was give me a quick call and I would have clarified it for you!"

I walked a little taller as I strode back to the control room to pick up my area for the day.  As I drove out of the car park I wondered what the bloody hell I was doing there.......

Foot Patrol....

The next morning, I arrived at Exeter just before 8am.  By now, I'd found the back way into the office, and walked into the building with an increasing feeling of tension.

I found the 'control room' again, and stood and waited as various people came and went.  After a short delay, the lady who I'd spoken to the afternoon before approached me.

"Ah, good, you're back."

"We are sending you on 'foot patrol'.  You need to go to this area, and check all the properties to see what animals there are there.  You mustn't go onto the farms, just use this list to phone the farmers, and mark any animals you find on the map."

"I don't understand" I said.

"What don't you understand?" she said.

"Are you telling me that you don't know what animals there are out there?"

"We've a good idea, but we need to be sure.  Pop down to the stores, and pick up some foot patrol leaflets.  By the way, if you find anyone with animals in that area that isn't already on Form D, then let us know and we will have a Form D sent out to them."

"I'm sorry, but I still don't understand why you need to know this stuff.  Surely you can just look on the IACS system to see what stock there is out there?"

"Unfortunately, we can't use the IACS system down here."

"Wouldn't it be easier for me to issue a Form D if one is needed?"

"Foot Patrols don't issue Form D.  It has to be either a vet or Trading Standards."

Shocked by what I'd seen and heard, I headed to the stores which was located near the back door.  The storeman looked at me with disdain when I asked for the Foot Patrol leaflets, and informed me that they were in the first garage "down there".  I headed off to find the garage.

Lifting the rollershutter door of the garage, I found a store of equipment which was obviously FMD related.  There were stacks of galvanised buckets, stirrup pumps, heavy oilskins and various other obsolete items.  Nestled in one corner was a stack of cardboard boxes containing leaflets.

I took a leaflet out of the top of a box, and stood reading it.  I wondered what useful information I was about to impart to the farming community that was currently locked down and barricaded into their holdings.  The leaflet contained information about being under Form D restriction, including a paragraph about what to do with farm produce like milk.  It gave the useless advice that 'Milk Churns should be left at the end of your lane for collection as usual."

I was horrified.  Milk churns had been discontinued nearly twenty years ago.

By now, I was totally disillusioned with the whole fiasco.  Here was I, a MAFF employee who was licensed by the police and the ministry to use firearms, experienced in humane dispatch procedures, a veteran of pest control, and my task was to find out if there were animals in the surveillance zone, and issue totally useless and out of date leaflets.

Further argument with the organisers was obviously going to be futile, so I headed off to my allocated area.

After driving for an hour or so, I found myself in a deserted hamlet.  I say 'deserted' because that was how it felt.  Curtains twitched, farm lanes remained barricaded off.  I phoned the first farm on the list.

"Have you got any news?" the farmer asked.  "No, I'm afraid not.  I just need to know what stock you have and check that you have a Form D.  Can you come to the end of your lane and meet me please?"

"You must be joking mate.  I'm staying here, and you are not to set foot on my farm."

It went on like that for most of the day.  Gradually, I managed to gather some information, including the fact that there were 200 hoggets in one field that didn't appear on the map I had.  I marked them onto the map, "200 hogs" written clearly in the relevant field.

At around 4pm, I headed back to Exeter with my maps and notes.