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10 years ?Christ where did that time go ?Remember it not being a pretty site watching the pyres burning .Talk of it being the end for MTBing and a bloke i worked with who had a smallholding convinced we were part of the problem spreading the disease by riding in the country !
That's a smell I'll never forget. Though it was more than 10 years. Certainly felt like it.
Blimey, time flies...
I was dating a girl in Devon at the time, all the talk between local farmers was about being able to order foot & mouth over the net so they could get payouts. The girl had a webbed toe, I refused to have kids with her, end of story.
... oh yes, i remember. i had a brand new marin mount vision arrive, my first foray into full sus after a fully rigid P7 that i'd ridden since new in 94, and as soon as i got the box open all the trails and paths were closed.
Red sky at night,
the sheep are alight.
Red sky in the morning,
the sheep are still burning
10 years, eh?
I remember going for a ride on the Long Mynd and there was miles of fencing on the top to help stop spreading f&m.
Stupidly, I'd forgot about it before setting off and the planned ride had to be altered somewhat!
My only lasting memory of F&M is a 10 hour drive to Aviemore from Glasgow as every car on the A9 had to be diverted into a layby to drive through a trough of disinfectant
I was working for Rentokill at the time, earned about 8k in overtime managing the vermin control on farms
We had a foot and mouth outbreak in 2007. Kind of gets forgotten about because the Government was actually prepared for it this time round and a slight economic problem occured that hogged the news.
Yup, I was still in high school, pretty much under house arrest the whole time, walk to the end of the estate, change shoes, disinfect both pairs, then catch the bus to school, repeat at the end of the day, no visitors.
On the plus side I had 300 acers of deserted national trust land to play in 🙂
Somehow we were pretty much the only farm in the area not to get it.
Blimey - 10 years!
I did some work on that outbreak - not something I want to repeat again tbh.
I do remember standing on top of the Lond Mynd, on a lovely sunny day, with not a single sole within eyesight or earshot - one definite highlight!
10 years has flown... I was a student working a summer job at DEFRA dealing with booking accomodation for veterinary teams and re issuing mobile phones that had been lost on various farms across the Yorkshire Dales. Now I live near the Yorkshire Dales, I have no idea what it must have been like.
I remember being sat in a log cabin in Glencoe when it was announced, a thursday night IIRC. Luckily, our winter climbing/mountaineering week was all but over. The next week, no one was allowed out in the mountains.
GT was one of the few places that opened up so travelled there to ride, in some senses it probably helped make it so popular. I also remember listening to people talking rubbish about farmers buying the infection for pay outs thank god that's stopped.
I was in devon and remember getting a lecture from the farmer- who kept moving his cattle illegally. about walking my dogs ont he road when his sheep were in the field next to my house. I susggested it was probably better if the dog did not travel as this lowered the risk and he ought to get his own house in order rather then lecture me. He then called me a groggle [ is that he term forget now] I said at least I had not married my sister oh how we about the banter etc 😯
Wow, just started my current job back then, still really keen to do it then, expectant father, riding a pale blue full sus Spesh. Can recall quite frequent trips to CyB as it was one of the areas not toally closed (think it was closed, but then reopened before the rest of the countryside). By the end of the summer I'd gone back to my steel Marin Pine Mountain.
Big disinfectant mats on the way into the Lakes, but nothing to clean bike wheels off with, except some keen landowners had buckets of disinfectant at certain gates.
Wierd that it was "only" 10 years ago really. Doesn't feel that long ago.
I was working part time on a farm in South Wales then.
After it was over, farmers were talking about how many cattle they could get on their land as they were expecting it to happen the following year and wanted to ensure the maximum payout.
I was working as a Voluntary Ranger in the Pentland Hills, putting up "closed" signs everywhere and then patrolling to make sure the signs were obeyed.....
....then falling out with them over delays to re-opening and subsequently being asked to leave when some internal correspondence was leaked to the press.
I still have to wear a mask when I go up there 😉
I remember flying back from Manchester to aberdeen, it was a really cold, crisp, sunny day, on a dash 8 turbo prop (flew low and not too fast).
Usual chatter onthe plane, some drinks served, then out the windows as we flew over the Borders, there was silence as pyre after pyre after pyre of smouldering farm animals left smoke pillars from coast to coast. Disturbing.
Friends family are in Lockerbie, and killing all their livestock almost sent them loopy as they had not long recovered from fishing bodies and aeroplane seats out of trees round the farm. 😯
kev
My uncle (a pretty senior vet) was seconded to DEFRA during the worst of it - very, very grim times.
On Mendip, the best thing that happened was a bunch of frustrated cavers digging in the [i]carpark[/i] of the Hunters Lodge (since they were banned from their usual activities) - and discovering a cave, right next to the pub...
I was doing my PhD on Pennine hay meadows, totally shafted a years work. I'll never forget going up Hartside pass on my roadbike and seeing all the fires in the Eden Valley. The smell in Penrith was awful. I remeber it starting in Feb and thinking oh well it will be all over by June when I need to go to my field sites.... last case was in about 3 miles from my main field site must have been in late august.