Last time round

Over thirty years later, these scenes are familiar again

Virtually every single vet in the country has been drawn into the foot-and-mouth crisis - even final year students have been called on to help examine herds to see if they've been infected.

It's a very sad business - people who go through five years' training to help animals end up playing a part in a massive, rolling slaughter.

They also have to work with farmers they've known for years who are watching their herds being wiped out - so it's a counselling role too.

Sheep are killed humanely

In the novelist James Herriot's phrase, 'It shouldn't happen to a vet.'

James Herriot's real name was Alf Wight, but he really did practice in North Yorkshire.

His son Jim Wight was a vet too, and having just retired to write his father's biography, he's wondering if he might have to take up arms again.

Jim Wight has seen the effects of foot-and-mouth first hand - in December 1967 was sent by his father to Crewe to help out in the last foot-and-mouth crisis.

Broadcasting House joined him in rural Buckinghamshire yesterday afternoon to talk about whether vets are coping with a disaster on this scale.

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Extract from "The Real James Herriot" by Jim Wight, with permission from the author:

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A farming friend of mine told me, a year or two ago, 'It's a "numbers game" now." He was absolutely right.

Gone are the days of calling cows Buttercup and Bluebell; they are simply part of an enterprise driven on, as with most things, by money.

In today's commercially dominated world there is less room for sentiment although that is not to say that the modern farmer is without feeling for his stock.

I was to observe an example of the close bond between the farmer and his animals on a recent visit to a hill farm.

Not just a number?

The visit - to a farm in the Hambleton Hills to put down an old cow - was an unusual job. As the farmer took me over to her, he requested that I perform the job as painlessly as possible.

She was lying on a bed of straw, unable to rise, and she presented a pitiful picture. Her taut, wrinkled skin, gentle, grey face and pure white eyelashes - all hallmarks of a very old animal - caught my attention immediately.

As she turned her head slowly towards me, she seemed to be appealing for help, but I knew that I could do little for her.

'This auld girl is twenty-two year auld,' said the farmer unsteadily. "She's been a grand cow in 'er time an' Ah want 'er to go quietly." He paused a moment as he composed himself. 'Can yer inject 'er to put 'er away? Ah don't want 'er to be shot."

Shooting is a swift and humane way to destroy an animal but he was adamant that she received an injection, despite the fact that this would render her carcass unsuitable for dog meat, let alone human consumption. It was a most unusual request.

'Of course, George,' I replied, 'but you do realise that this means you will receive absolutely nothing for her?'

'No matter,' he replied, walking over to the old animal and stroking her head gently. His voice trembled with emotion. 'She owes me nowt!'