Newton Tracey - Part One

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.......

"Do you remember those fish and chips?"

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.

The Army arrive

To the relief of everyone working on FMD we heard that the army had been called into Devon following their success in Cumbria.

We were all optimistic that they would sort things out, and that we would no longer be waiting for stores, or sent to the wrong farms.

Our first experience of the army was not a good one.

We'd been sent to kill some sheep on what is known as 'off' land.  The sheep were not on the main holding, but in some fields away from the farm.  There were some buildings, but no farmer to help, and no sheep dog.

The sheep themselves were scattered across a number of fields, which were all connected by an old track.  Off this track there were seven separate gateways, and there were only five of us.

At the entrance to the land, a police panda car was parked up (as usual) and alongside it, in a hire car were two squaddies.  We said hello to them when we arrived, and they seemed friendly, although reluctant to get out of the car.

We spent quite a long time trying to get the sheep into the shed where they were going to be killed.  Our main problem was that there just wasn't enough of us to get block off the gateways, so the sheep would escape into the first open gate they came to.  We had no hurdles, and it was starting to annoy us all.

I asked one of the drovers to go and get the two squaddies to give us a hand.  After 10 minutes or so, he came back shaking his head,

"They won't do it."  he said.

"What the bloody hell do you mean?" 

"They are refusing point blank!" he said.

I marched off to the entrance and tapped on the window of the car,

"Lads, we really need a hand.  We just need you to come and stand in some open gateways for five minutes while we bring these sheep in"

"No chance mate." one of them said.  "We've been told that we don't have to set foot on the farms."

"Listen" I said, "no-one is asking you to get involved with the slaughter, we just need to bodies for five minutes"

"Well we aren't doing it."  he said.  "We've just got back from Kosovo, and have been told that we don't have to see any animals killed or anything."

"I'm not asking you to see any animals killed, I just want you to help get the sheep into the shed."

"Nope.  We're not moving."

"Right.  Can you tell me what the f*ck you are doing here then?"

"Our role is to provide 'logistical support' " he said.

"Well, we don't need any logistical support, so if all you are going to do is sit on your arses here, then you may as well go"

He wound up his window.

I stood back and looked at the two cars sitting there with occupants doing nothing.  I wasn't having it.

I tapped on the window again,

"I meant what I said.  If you aren't going to help at all, then get your backsides off the premises and go and report what has happened to whoever it is that you report to.  NOW! "

They took the hint.

By the time I had rejoined the team they had moved some gates from the shed, and blocked off the lane.  We got the sheep in and did the job.

The next day, we all decided to attend the morning briefing.  Everyone on the team was still unhappy about what had happened the day before, and the general feeling was that I should say something about it in the meeting.

After all the usual rubbish about how 'under control' things were, the question came;

"any questions?"

I stood up.

"Yes, we've got a question.  What is the role of the Royal Military Police here?"

The female Major of the RMP stood up.

"Perhaps I can answer that.  We are here to provide logistical support to the people on the ground."

It was the answer I expected.

"Can you tell us all what exactly 'logistical support' means please?  The reason I ask is that yesterday, we had two of your men sat on a farm gate alongside the police.  When they were asked to provide us with some support, they refused point blank to come onto the premises."

She started to look embarrassed.  I wasn't letting it go.

"You see, the thing is, we've all been working hard for weeks now, and struggling with the job.  We've all been looking forward to the army getting involved and helping us sort things out.  If all that you are going to do is to sit at farm gates while we work, then there doesn't seem much point in you being here."

She stood up, and with a tremble in her voice, repeated her earlier comment;

"As I said earlier, we are here to provide logistical support with stores, pressure washers etc.  It is true that my men have been told that they don't have to go onto farms unless they want to; they've just returned from a harrowing tour in Kosovo..."

I butted in and stopped her,

"I'm sorry, but that is just not good enough.  We draw our own stores, and if we needed a pressure washer we could draw that too.  I'm just not understanding what bloody use you lot are.  Is this just a press stunt to keep the media happy? Oh, and we are still on our 'harrowing tour'."

She couldn't answer, and walked out.

I may have been harsh with the RMP, but they were no use to us.