Interview with Clive Hawes, farmer
Notes
Interview date: 29 May 2002
Interview location: Grange Farm, Little
Chesterton,
Bicester, Oxfordshire. OX25 3PD.
Interviewee: Clive Hawes
Interviewer: Andrew Wood
Transcript key: AW: Andrew Wood; CH: Clive Hawes;
CHS: Clive
Hawes son
Transcript
3.0.
AW: I'll take this off so I can see ma, it keeps the
time
3.1.
[Interviewer removes watch]
3.2.
AW: Okay, it’s err Wednesday 29th of May. I'm
interviewing Clive Hawes at Little Chesterton, Grange Farm, and this is
Andrew
Wood interviewing
3.3.
AW: Clive, if I asked you to introduce yourself what
do you
think you'd say
3.4.
CH: Umm, my name's Clive Hawes, as you just said, I
live at
Little Chesterton, Grange Farm, Little Chesterton, um, I'm forty eight
years
old, I've been farming here all my life
3.5.
[Clive Hawes’s son enters room].
3.6.
CH: Umm, live here with my wife and two sons who are
thirteen
and fifteen, is this recording all the time
3.7.
AW: Yeah, I mean we can stop it
3.8.
CH: Right, keep out
3.9.
CHS: Sorry
3.10.
AW:
So, um, how did you get into farming
3.11.
CH:
Um, through the farm, family farming business, my farther was a farmer
and my
grand farther before him, um, probably, five or six generations, as far
back as
local, err, family knowledge goes
3.12.
AW:
So you've been farming at this farm throughout your working life
3.13.
CH:
Yup, and lived here, yes, yup
3.14.
AW:
And err, has the farm changed much in that time
3.15.
CH:
Um Yes. Farm's changes dramatically, farming has changed dramatically
from, as
I mentioned to you earlier, because the motorways come through as well,
umm
3.16.
AW:
Go back to when you started working here with, you were working with
your
farther here, on the farm
3.17.
CH:
Yeah, umm, a lot, lots and lots of labour, umm
3.18.
AW:
So let's see, that's about fifty, what is that, forty eight, forty
eight years
ago
3.19.
CH:
Well I was born forty eight years ago, I suppose, I started going down
the
farm, I was always taken down the farm as a baby because my mum and dad
were
milking down there, um so I can remember from about three years on and
they
were milking in a very old, fashion parlour and very unmechanised,
where as
today its totally changed round the other way
3.20.
AW:
Was it a small hear
3.21.
CH:
Um, it would be considered a very small heard today, but in those days
they
considered it to be quite large. I think they started with about fifty
cows,
and built over ten years to, about two hundred, which in those days was
considered large, today, of course, a thousand is large and five
hundred is
probably a fair sized heard, um, saying the way it's gone
3.22.
AW:
So was it, it was a mixed farm at that time was it
3.23.
CH:
Err very much so, I mean my farther was into, the dairy side of it and
pedigree
fresian cattle, that was his hobby and milking, umm he then started up
a small
pig heard, umm, which he built up to about a thousand pigs, producing
pork pigs
umm and when I first left school, prior to leaving school, I started
with sheep
because he hadn't got sheep enterprise on the farm and he was very keen
that I
did something on my own, so by the time I'd left school, I'd got about
a
thousand ewes of my own which were on rented land and just came back
here for
lambing
3.24.
AW:
And umm, where were those umm, where were those cattle and sheep sold,
and
pigs, were they sold locally
3.25.
CH:
All through local markets, in those days, hmm, there wasn't, umm or
certain
there was very little direct selling to the abattoirs because the
multiples
weren't involved. I mean that's probably the biggest transformation
that's
happened in the last fifteen years, is that the multiples of
supermarkets, when
I say the multiples of supermarkets have taken all the buying power, so
consequently the little markets, i.e. like Bicester market, which
traditionally
we all went to, I mean it, it was the day out, where you went and you
might
have taken you ten pigs and four lambs or whatever, and you'd see
everybody and
chat about all these things, those markets can't survive because there
aren't
the little butchers who went there to buy, umm, and it's not possible
for them
to survive, so it's probably one of the biggest changes that we've
seen, is the
actual marketing side of it
3.26.
AW:
And, were, were there any crops grown here, you said about some of the
livestock, you, you kept some sheep
3.27.
CH:
Yeah
3.28.
AW:
Your father had cattle and pigs
3.29.
CH:
We didn't start keeping, we didn't start doing any arable until I
guess, about,
it would be about, twenty years ago, and then the corn prices, if I
remember
had become very lucrative, and so it looked more profitable then to go
into the
arable side of it, plus the arable could be done using contractors and
outside
labourers, rather than having the high staffing costs, because we had,
when we
had a lot of livestock here in the, in the old days we had a lot of
labour, probably
had five or six guys working here full time and although the wages were
comparably low, it was still a lot of money going out, each week
3.30.
AW:
Did they live on your farm, or were they
3.31.
CH:
Yeah, they all, they all had tired cottages
3.32.
AW:
And do you remember what umm, what crops, were first grown, arable
3.33.
CH:
I think the first crops that were grown were probably wheat, umm, we
grow
continuous wheat for probably four or five years. Umm and then, after
that, I
believe set-a-side just came in, and at that time you had a set-a-side
option
where you could put a hundred percent into set-aside
3.34.
AW:
What, do you remember what sort of rough date those would be
3.35.
CH:
I would guess it's about ten to fifteen years ago, as I said, we
started
growing wheat about twenty odd years ago, we had continuous wheat with
oil seed
rape, we did grow oil seed rape, for a couple of years when that was
good and,
umm, then we went to a hundred percent set-a-side which was by far the
best
thing as far as I was concerned, umm, once that, that finished we then
grew
hemp one year, I grew three hundred acres of hemp which was quite an
amazing
crop, umm, again for the subsidy, there was a two and sixty three pound
an acre
subsidy on it, err
3.36.
AW:
Did you grow wheat initially because of the subsidy or the market
price, or
3.37.
CH:
No, initially, it was the market price, I mean in, in those days, going
back
twenty five years ago before we got involved with the EEC really, the
old
efficiency payments that had come-in post war, had more or less been
phased-out, and our prices had reached a sensible level, so there was
very
little subsidies about, there were a few subsidies for um, buildings
and
improvements and that sort of thing, maybe a bit of conservation
subsidies as
well, but very, very little direct subsidies, which is how I think it
should be
now, I mean I think it's a prime example of if bureaucracy gets
involved with
trying to manipulate the prices, they make a total cock-up of it,
that's a
personal view
3.38.
AW:
Hmm, so, when you started going to arable, did the farm large get
larger, did
you take on more land
3.39.
CH:
Uhum, yes
3.40.
AW:
I mean, you've been farming for about thirty years, roughly, is that
about right,
here at this farm with your, your father
3.41.
CH:
Well, my father died when I was about eighteen, so I've been doing it
in on my
own for about thirty years, umm, we, once we went to arable we did take
over a
lot more land, umm, as farms a became available and guys retired, we
would take
over the farms and contract farm it or share farm it with them, and um,
we
would have ended up I suppose, or I would have ended up, in about umm,
what
would it be, twenty, yeah, about fifteen, twenty years ago I’d have had
about a thousand acres, all under arable
3.42.
AW:
That's, that’s quite a size, err, for this
3.43.
CH:
Well it was then,
3.44.
AW:
Was it
3.45.
CH:
But now a days of course, it's not, I mean now you're looking at guy's
in the
area probably doing five thousand acres, umm, and they'll be the people
that
continue, and I guess in ten years time and they'll probably have
twenty
thousand acres, because it will go in multiples, you know, because the
machinery is that much bigger, I remember fields that I used to bail, I
used to
do the bailings because we needed a lot of straw back here for the live
stock,
and umm, there's a farm between here and Bicester, which was four
hundred acres
of arable, and it would take me about a month to bail that, now with
the big
high density bailers, like last year I saw the guys go in, they'd
bailed and cleared
the whole farm in three days, and that was one man, whereas when we
were doing
it, we'd have, like, me bailing, three guys pitching and loading the
bails and
another couple stacking them back in the barn, and so, five men,
working for
thirty days, you’ve got a hundred and fifty man days replaced by a
three
days. It's just incredible, I mean it’s fundamental difference
3.46.
AW:
When you started going to arable did you, err, was that all sub
contracted or
did you use the, or were the employees who lived on the farm, were
they,
started going into that, or
3.47.
CH:
No, we always used contractors, because we see from our point of view
it was
far cheaper to go there contract route than it was to have hour own
machinery
3.48.
AW:
So would those be neighbouring farmers, people from the village
3.49.
CH:
No, they were specific agricultural contractors
3.50.
AW:
So they, they, could be working nationally and, how would you find
those, how
would you find those people?
3.51.
CH:
Umm, at that particular time, because there were a lot of people doing
similar
to us, there were a lot of young guys that were farmers sons that
started up
contracting, there were, lots and lots that started up contracting, so
there
was never a problem to find them, umm, and also in those days they were
going
through all, the country was going through very high inflation, they
could go
out and lease their machinery, and like five years later they'd sell
the old
machine on for the same money they'd bought it for, but of course, the
next
five years they caught a cold because suddenly that didn't work any more
3.52.
AW:
And as far as the machinery goes that must err, that must be a big
change, when
you started at eighteen umm, there were obviously tractors, err, at
that time,
umm combine harvesters, have you seen changes, any big changes in that,
has
that changes a lot
3.53.
CH:
Well yes, I think I touched on that before, for example, the old, the
old
bailers which made the small bails that were sort of man-handle-able
because
they were designed to be handled by hand, umm, are so totally different
to
today's bailers, I mean I think an average straw bail would probably,
you'd
probably get about fifty to the tonne, whereas with these high density
bails now
you'd probably get three to the tonne, and obviously its designed for
machines,
you've got teleporters, fast track JCB's that can travel on the road
3.54.
AW:
Sorry what are teleporters
3.55.
CH:
Teleporters are four wheel drive loaders effectively, which, are all
singing, all
dancing, with electronic controls where as any loaders we had, in the
early
days they hadn't even got hydraulic tilts, I mean you, you drove your
little
old tractor and you had to steer it into the heap of bails or whatever,
so, it's
a totally different ball game
3.56.
AW:
And has similar, there been similar changes with stock, I mean, err
3.57.
CH:
I suppose the most dramatic change in stock, was probably the different
breeds
that have come-in, umm, because, again, and that’s, that has almost
turned full circle interestingly enough, because, initially we would
have been
all the Old Dutch type of friesians, umm the beef would have been
nearly all
have been Hertford and Angus crosses, none, nobody had ever hear of a
Charolais
or Continental beast, and of course when they first all came
over, the
traditional butchers hated them because it was lean tough meat, but of
course
it was exactly what the supermarkets wanted, they wanted a high lean
ratio that
could be sold very quickly, they didn't want to see any fat, and so I
think
with the livestock it would definitely be the breeds that have changed
so
dramatically, but interestingly enough, suddenly the supermarkets have
realised
that, I think general public become more affluent, and so they are
paying
premiums, I think you mentioned earlier that you got, a previous
interviewee
that had got, umm, a premium job with Sainsbury's and umm they're
paying
premiums for the Old English breeds again, which is great, they're
coming back,
but it's because it eats better, its higher fat content, slower
growing, its
got more flavour
3.58.
AW:
Does your family help out on the farm with, with you at the moment much
3.59.
CH:
Yeah, umm, not so much so much as historically because there isn't the
manual
work to do
3.60.
AW:
Umm is that, is that your, your wife, your partner, or your err children
3.61.
CH:
One son is very keen, one son would love to be a farmer, um
3.62.
AW:
What sort age are they, if you don't mind me asking
3.63.
CH:
He's thirteen, umm and, I mean it's in his blood, I've sort of, in one
way I'd
like him to do it, on the other hand I'd like him not to do it because,
there's
an awful lot of other things that one can do, and umm farming isn't the
romantic thing that it used to be, umm you know there's so much
bureaucracy
involved and, so many people who are 'anti' what your doing, that it
is, a bit
of a liability
3.64.
AW:
But you think they, they might follow in your foot, footsteps
3.65.
CH:
I think the young one would if he can get the land, if it's viable
enough,
probably, probably more likely to, be part-time, because we're not big
enough
now, umm I think, as I mentioned before I've sort of diversified over
the years
and luckily my income isn't totally dependent on farming, if it was, we
could
live in the lifestyle that we all, we've got other income, thank God
3.66.
AW:
Does your, does your partner, your wife, help out on the farm at all
3.67.
CH:
Yes she does, she helps out, but she's, she's got a full time job as
well, hum,
hum
3.68.
AW:
And does she play a part in decision making as far as business
decisions you
might call them
3.69.
CH:
Umm
3.70.
AW:
What sort of thing does she do if you don't mind me asking
3.71.
CH:
She does all the bookwork, umm, she pays the bills, she runs the ear
tagging
for the cattle and, that BCMS thing umm, if we've got a lot of sheep to
move
and that sort of thing, she'll be out there helping with the sheep, umm
yeah
whatever
3.72.
AW:
So the only, so you have subcontractors who work on the farm but apart
from
that and the assistance from your family there are no employees, um,
does, I
don't know if you've got any family, brothers or sisters who
3.73.
CH:
No, no, nobody else, no
3.74.
AW:
So what's, what’s a typical working day for you, I mean this might have
changed in the last year but, I mean you can say now, or a year ago,
what, what
do you think is, what is a typical working day for you
3.75.
CH:
Umm, well again, I think, my day is split up into, five or six
different
entities because as I said I'm not totally dependent on the farming
issue, if
we, if we were busy lambing, for example, then my whole day would be
looking
after the sheep, in that instance I'd be up, not that early, probably
seven
o'clock and probably working through with the sheep to, probably check
’em
at nine o'clock at night, just to see everything is okay, umm, but my
typical
day is, I'm sort of fetching materials for the builders that I've got
working
for me, umm, shopping for the nursing home, doing these other different
things,
fetching and carrying, and if there's a problem anywhere then I sort
the
problem out
3.76.
AW:
And you, and you'd hire the subcontractors, etc if they where, I don't
know, if
when you had the sheep, you where, umm
3.77.
CH:
If we were shearing then I'd have sheers, and I'd get the sheep in, you
know,
I'd get the sheep in on my quad bike, set the guys up in the morning
and, leave
them to it
3.78.
AW:
So normally you can, umm, plan your day, set it going in the morning
and then,
umm, do that, come back in the evening, see what's happened and tell
them what
to do for the next morning
3.79.
CH:
Yeah, to a degree, I mean if we were sheering, I have that option but
I'd be
about because I enjoy it, you know I used to do the sheering myself, as
a boy I
was contract sheerer, umm, it would do me in now if I did it, but I
still like
to be involved because it's, it's a traditional thing that, you know,
you
relate to, you relate to these guys who are incredible, craftsman,
breaking
their backs, you know, doing a job which is, part and parcel of the
romance of
it, if that makes sense. I don't know if it does or not
3.80.
AW:
So when you started at eighteen or so would you be doing the sheering
3.81.
CH:
Oh yeah, I went around contract sheering, I started doing that when I
was about
thirteen in the umm holidays
3.82.
AW:
And what sort of size of flock did you have in those days
3.83.
CH:
Umm
3.84.
AW:
When you started at eighteen or so, you started
3.85.
CH:
I would have had in those days, no I had about a thousand sheep of my
own when
I was eighteen, but when I started, the first sheep I was seven, I had
about a
hundred ewes at thirteen, but if you're asking me when I went around
sheering
the local farmers, a big flock would have been about a hundred and
fifty, in
those days
3.86.
AW:
So you started, you were quite big, quite early on really
3.87.
CH:
Well because I started, I started with the sheep very early, and
because as I
say my father always made me keep it as a separate business, umm,
because he
hadn't got any sheep then it was quite easy for me to identity my own,
obviously
when I was at school, umm, then if there, he'd go round looking at that
them
for me, that sort of thing, for me, umm, but in the holidays and that
you could
cover most of the work, hum, hum
3.88.
AW:
And were there other aspects of the work that you would have done
yourself
which you now, put out to contract.
3.89.
CH:
Oh all of it, yeah, we would have done all of it, we wouldn't have had
any
contractors historically, but as, as I tried to explain earlier, as the
wages
got higher and the costs of employing somebody got higher, we found it
far
cheaper to, to employee a specialist guy that could get through the
volume, err,
it's logistics isn't it
3.90.
AW:
So over a period of years those employees became subcontractors in
effect
3.91.
CH:
Some, yeah, some, some became subcontractors, umm, some of them went on
to do
other things, but I guess if you look at the, the umm, employees in
agriculture
over the whole country, sort of today, well, say 2000 as against 1965,
I'd
guess there was only twenty or thirty per cent of the guys working, I
don't
know, I don't know if that's the statistic, but
3.92.
AW:
When, when you started farming, were there, were there other, umm, were
there
other food products produced that where produced here on the farm,
butter,
maybe cheese or umm
3.93.
CH:
No, err, um, we would have been producing, err, pork, we were selling
pork
pigs, milk from the cattle and beef from the cattle, and then later on,
when I
had my own sheep, we'd have been selling the lamb as well, so I mean it
was meat,
all those four meat products, we weren't doing any value added work on
the farm
at all, if you go back a generation, then I know from what I've been
told, that
my grandmother, in the sort of the war years, and in those years, they
would
have been selling butter, they would have been selling eggs, they would
have
been selling wool, in those years they would have been doing all those
sort of
things, umm, and I think when you, when you hear what they had to say,
there
was quite sort of black economy in the war, and they did very well out
of
selling eggs, I mean they'd always got eggs and things that people
wanted, so,
you know they probably did quite well in those years
3.94.
AW:
As far as keeping, sorry did you say you used to keep a dairy
3.95.
CH:
Yup
3.96.
AW:
Yeah, umm was there, why did you decided to stop keeping dairy
3.97.
CH:
Umm, the margins were getting tighter and tighter, I personally didn't
like
milking, err, as I said earlier in the interview, it was my fathers
hobby,
breeding pedigree cattle and milking was his, love
3.98.
AW:
Did he, did he win any county prizes and that sort of thing
3.99.
CH:
On yeah, we've got a load of cups and that sort of thing, umm, from
sort of 1950's
to the 1960's
3.100.
AW: And where
would those been, Royal Show or Oxfordshire
3.101.
CH: Probably
Oxfordshire, they were local, they tended to be Berks, Bucks and Oxon,
obviously
there were the Royal Shows and that kind of thing going on, but there
were a
lot more local competitions that people were going into, because
travelling
then was a big thing, I remember, as a kid, the sort of annual day out
would be
going out to Reading Horse Show and Sale, which seemed like the end of
the
earth go there, I mean we’d preparing for it for about a week, whereas
now you go to Reading in an hour and a half, you know
3.102.
AW: Was the
transition from err churns to err tanks, was that, did you make that
transition
on this farm
3.103.
CH: Yea, yeah, umm,
yeah that seemed quite a miracle really, I can remember that because,
rolling
the churns out and putting them up on the old milk stand was, hard work
3.104.
AW: And similarly,
umm, the, the change from keeping corn in bags to err bins, silos
3.105.
CH: I can't
remember doing that, because we didn't have any arable when I was
young, we
only went into the arable, as I said before, you know, when I was
twenty,
twenty-ish, so it was all bulk then
3.106.
AW: And in terms
of the machinery I mean it’s obviously got larger, can you, err, within
err when you from when you started farming can you remember any
machinery that
had previously you hadn’t used before
3.107.
CH: Umm, well, I
guess there’d be no end of different machines if we start thinking
about
corn drying, there were the umm batch dryers which were the gas dryers
which
came in
3.108.
AW: These were
all things that you had here on the farm where they
3.109.
CH: Yeah,
umm, that was quite a miraculous thing when we first had
it, umm,
because, it circulates the corn and just blows it dry and polishes the
corn,
umm, farm hand loaders, which now are very outdated but we were
pitching bails,
when I say pitching, you have a fork, and you throw them onto a
trailer, and
then the farm-hand loaders came in and they were like a flat eight you
had a
sledge that initially, well initially you didn’t have a sledge, you
laid
them out , you laid them out in flat eights by hand, but you had this
grab on
the front of the tractor which picked up eight bails. Well you could
just sit
on your tractor and pull a lever and eight bails went up onto the
trailer, if
you were lucky, umm, that was a miraculous thing, umm rotor spreaders,
I mean a
simple thing like a rotor spreader, I don’t know if you ever heard of
that, but that’s like a umm, old very old fashion now muck spreader
which
was like circular and it had chains, which flung the manure out the
side
whereas the old ones you had to sort of stake it all in by hand well
these you
could load and put slurry in or whatever and it would still come out
the side,
umm so that was another one, but the change in the machinery would be
just too
numerous to, to even think about in the, few minutes, hum, hum
3.110.
AW: And silage I
suppose as well, the move from hay to silage, was that, I mean err on
farm was
that something that happened
3.111.
CH: Yeah, well
silage umm, particularly, we, we used contractors for the silage
making, from
about, again I would guess, twenty five years ago, prior to that we had
all our
own little silage machinery which was direct chop umm, New Holland’s
with
a little old tractor and little trailers that you trail-towed behind,
and again
to do a ten acre field would probably take you, two days, and then the
contractors came in with their bigger machines, which today don’t look
very
big, but of course they’d do a ten acre field in half a day, and
that’s increased and increased to such a stage now that they can
probably
do two hundred acres in a day now
3.112.
AW: And other
feeds, for, for cattle and sheep that must of changed, has that changed
in the,
in the time that you’ve been farming much
3.113.
CH: Yeah, I think
umm, when we first started, there were an awful, awful lot of course
mixes, you
didn’t see so much cake, which is quite, quite an interesting factor I
mean I can remember that, the course mixes used to be, we’d roll it
ourselves on the farm, you’d have rolled barley which would be the base
of everything, and then you’d have linseed cake and locus beans and all
these sort of beans that, come from foreign countries, but wonderful,
wonderful
food and of course all prime stuff because in those days they, they
couldn’t extract the oil and that to the extent that they do today out
of
it, so it was far better quality than it is today
3.114.
AW: What about
occupational hazards, umm, lifting, farm machinery, umm certain
chemicals you
might use here, on the farm, have you had any, umm, problems with that
yourself, or
3.115.
CH: Umm, just the
usual I mean, I think every farmer gets a bad back, umm so yeah so
that’s
probably that’s the only one I’ve had, I’ve been poisoned
with dip which was my own fault umm but it’s never bothered me since, I
had err umm OP poisoning or whatever one day after I’ve been dipped all
day but I was stood on the side of the dip, got my shirt off, getting
covered
in dip as the sheep were jumping in, housing myself off because it was
hot and
getting covered again and of course that night it, I’d taken so much in
I
was in, like delirious, I was in a hell of a state, but luckily
it’s never sort of bothered me since
3.116.
AW: So
there’s no, nothing recurring
3.117.
CH: No, and it
does make me wonder as an issue because I’ve got friends who have been
mobile dippers all their life, I say all their life twenty years and
covered in
dip and it doesn’t bother them, and yet some other poor people seem to
have been exposed to it once or twice and it makes you wonder whether
there’s
a hereditary thing involved, involved as well, but that’s another
issue,
it’s not for me to say now
3.118.
AW: Err,
there’s been some farmers, some farmers considering changing from OP
dips
umm, to, oh I’ve forgotten what they’re called now but umm
3.119.
CH: Err, is it
carbon
3.120.
AW: They’re
not OP
3.121.
CH: No, I know
what you mean
3.122.
AW: There’s
something that’s slightly less effective but, umm supposedly umm it
doesn’t have the same problems that, you know
3.123.
CH: Yeah
3.124.
AW: That
supposedly people pick up
3.125.
CH: Well
3.126.
AW: Have you been
dipping with OPs since you’ve had sheep
3.127.
CH: Umm, no
because when we first started we were still using dieldrin which was an
amazing
product, I mean it was wonderful, because you could just tip a bit on
its head,
on a sheep’s head, and it would be maggot free for, probably five
months,
and of course that was banned, which was fair enough, but umm, we then
went on
to the umm, OP dips, which seemed useless in comparison to
dieldrin but
now of course they seem a lot better than some of the things that are
on the
market today because its very fashionable not to dip sheep, umm which
is why
we’re got so much scab and sheep lice that are all coming back because
the only way to protect the sheep properly is to dip them, and dip them
properly
3.128.
AW: And did you,
have you seen any change in the, in the sheep products, I mean, you
were
shearing your sheep throughout
3.129.
CH: Yeah
3.130.
AW: umm
3.131.
CH: Umm, well a
shearing machine is actually very, very similar to what it was forty
years, I
mean that’s suddenly changed from being a hand shearer, to an electric
shearer and the electric shearer is a little more stream lined and
maybe a
little bit wider cutter but umm, very, that hasn’t changed much at all,
because some of those very basic jobs, so far they haven’t managed to
change from being manual to mechanical, I mean, they’re trying but
never
seems to work because you’re dealing with such an irregular product, I
mean, a sheep’s body, a sheep’s body is different so you
can’t have a machine that does it, unless you’ve got a sheep
that’s exactly the same, umm so that ware hasn’t changed, chemicals
have changed, as we mentioned before, umm, but no I think actually from
the
husbandry side of it, it probably hasn’t changed that much, umm, the
rules and regulations have changed, err, like now it’s very difficult
to
get hold of err penicillin or antibiotics to treat, sheep, umm, which
may or
may be a good thing, personally I find it very frustrating that I can’t
go to the vet and say, could I have a bottle of terramycin cause I got
a lane
sheep and the vet’s fine to give it to me because he wants to come out
and look at them, if he comes out and looks at them then he’ll change
me
a hundred quid, so you know, there you go
3.132.
AW: How do you
keep in touch with what’s happening, umm, in the UK and abroad as far
as
farming goes
3.133.
CH: Umm, I
suppose the biggest medium would be the press, umm
3.134.
AW: Is that
Farmers Weekly
3.135.
CH: Farmers
Weekly, I take Farmers Weekly, the Farmer’s Guardian is very
good,
you get various free mags, umm, but because now particularly, all my
life
I’ve sort of been going abroad to Europe and that sort of thing
I’ve trading, I’ve got good trading partners in Europe, then
I’ve always my ear listening to what they say, so it’s word of
mouth as well, and umm, you know at the moment, particularly France is
very,
very pro-farming and umm, certainly if I was going into farming now, if
my boy
goes in, then I’ll encourage him to go over there, because the
Government
there really want you, it doesn’t matter if you’re French, as long
that, your going into the farming, umm, they’re very pro, and it’s
really quite refreshing to see it
3.136.
AW: And that,
there are other ways of keeping in touch of course, I mean there’s,
there’s other media, there’s umm, radio, Farming Today, I
don’t know if
3.137.
CH: I don’t
listen to that, hum, hum
3.138.
AW: Umm, there
might be web sites
3.139.
CH: Yeah, I find,
find the websites, I’ve yet to find a good website, in, in farming,
umm,
I mean we use the err Farmers Weekly Interactive, umm I use the
Aberdeen and
Northern Marts’ marketing one, they’re got a new computer sales
thing which is quite interesting and they putting a lot of money into
trying to
promote that umm, but whether or not it will ever take off I don’t know
3.140.
AW: And then of
course, there’s umm, there might be associations, producer
associations,
I don’t know if you’re a member of any producer associations
3.141.
CH: No I’m
not, I’ve always tried to, for whatever reason I sort of paddle my own
canoe to be honest, I’ve kept away from that, but of course the biggest
media, the biggest way to learn what was going on was the markets, the
livestock markets, because then you would meet everybody else, you’d
all
picked up a bit here and there, if there was a new subsidy or a new
rule coming
out, it would be discussed in the bar and everybody that went was
switched on,
and of course that’s gone
3.142.
AW: Has, has,
presumably umm, farmers go to the market or used to, did their
frequency in
which they went to the market did that change, over err your faming
livelihood
3.143.
CH: Well
definitely, yeah, because the markets gradually shut down, um, I used
to be at,
in the markets at one stage, I would have been in the markets five days
a week,
err because as I said, I also digressed into the meat trade so I was
purchasing
livestock as well as selling livestock, so I would have done a
different market
five days a week, and from that I was obviously meeting different
people from
different areas, well, of those markets I used to cover, there's
probably, probably
only Thame that's still going, and Thame's going purely by chance
because a
group of farmers got together and bought it as a co-op, and I think if
any
survive they probably will
3.144.
AW: What were
the, can you remember the names of the other markets you used to go to
3.145.
CH: Yeah,
I’d do umm, Bicester market on a Monday, err Stratford Market on
a
Tuesday, umm Aylesbury Market on a Wednesday, Banbury Market on a
Thursday and,
Friday, I think Andover was probably a Friday, but Friday was like a
bit of
iffy day, could sometimes it'd be Chippenham, I don't know if
Chippenham is
still going
3.146.
AW: I think
Banbury used to be one of the largest
3.147.
CH: Banbury was
the largest livestock market in Europe and
3.148.
AW: Were you
surprised when that closed
3.149.
CH: Um, I could
probably see it coming, umm, and the reason it closed, at the time the
guys
that were running it were blamed for closing it because it would, it
would
appeared that it was political, but, with hindsight it closed because
the
business wasn't there to be done. There weren't the buyers, and without
the
buyers, there's no point in having the market, I mean, I've been in
Banbury
Market when there'd be two thousand fat cattle, ten thousand sheep, a
couple of
thousand pigs and, five hundred barren cows, not to mention a few bit's
and
other pieces that was there, on one day, and there’d be like hundreds
of
people there, all trading, which made a very healthy, in my
opinion, a
very healthy community, that's what I used to enjoy, that’s to me what
it
was about, you know, mixing, interacting, to me, to be stuck in one
place just
looking after my sheep and that romantic thing is not what I want
3.150.
AW: So what's
replaced those markets
3.151.
CH: Um, I think,
obviously direct selling has now replaced them because the foot and
mouth
issue, really, forced what was happening anyway, probably forced it on
ahead,
by two or three years so people had no option bar to sell their
livestock to
the abattoirs during the foot and mouth thing, um, producer groups,
which is a
good thing, um and various co-operatives that are selling direct to the
abattoirs anyway, but effectively if a farmers got a contact with an
abattoir
and he actually goes, or he or she goes there and wants to see his
livestock
graded and how it comes out as a carcass, then he should be marketing
it direct
to the abattoir, I mean, he’s got to shop around and see which abattoir
suits him the best, the markets in a way used to cushion the farmers,
and me
included, because you could send, take to Banbury for example, you
could send
two hundred sheep there and they could be two hundred sheep of
different
qualities, but there would be a man who would buy any one of those two
hundred
sheep, if you send two hundred sheep to an abattoir of different
quality and
you don’t know what that abattoir wants, you’ll get the top price
for twenty but you’d probably get nothing for the twenty that you
didn’t want, so in a way they’ve got to learn to market a different
way
3.152.
AW: So do you
think it was err, it was better for farmers then, or
3.153.
CH: I think it
was an incredibly much better system, yeah
3.154.
AW: Because of
the, the communication that happened
3.155.
CH: Because of
the communication, people had, people had, people could interconnect,
on the
news that was going on, in the, in the, nationally and internationally,
umm,
because there was competition, and without competition this job is
shot, you
have to have competition, you know, the stock market in London is
called the
stock market because it was based on livestock trading, the dealers in
the
London City are treated like heroes, and they’d they’re only,
they’re only doing what livestock dealers used to do, if the trades
bad, if
the trades bad, they’d, they’re will go ahead and think, oh this is
cheap, we’ll buy a certain percentage of the shares, and they maintain
an
equilibrium, and if you take all those guys out, you have no market and
that’s where we’re at now, you have no market
3.156.
AW: How do you
think farmers communicate today if they don’t have that forum that they
would meet
3.157.
CH: Umm, if
you’re lucky, now, you might see somebody in, umm, for example, I saw a
guy that I hadn’t seen for about a year, in umm MSF, the country, the
farmers
shop, effectively, and I happened to bump into him and umm, I would
normally
have seen him once a week in a particular market, you know, umm I’ve
known the guy since I was eight, nine years old, and probably seen him
on a
weekly basis over those years and that was the first I’ve seen him in
twelve months, so that’s how it’s changed
3.158.
AW: So, I was
going to ask you about this actually, farmers in other countries
3.159.
CH: Yeah
3.160.
AW: You
said you had contact with them, how did that come about
3.161.
CH: Umm, well I,
I have, like last year I had sheep myself, in France, so I’ve got some
guys down there that look after sheep for me, umm
3.162.
AW: How do you
manage that, It must be quite difficult, err
3.163.
CH: Well through
contacts, I mean, I’d, I umm, knew a chap that was selling farms over
there and got a lot of young English couples that were going over
there, buying
farms and they’re looking to earn money, so I was exporting sheep to
there and, they were then looking after, fattening them for me in their
sheds,
umm, so yeah, I talk to them, umm and other, other different people,
and you
were going to ask me how do they interact, is that the next thing
3.164.
AW: Yeah, err, do
those markets happen abroad that used to happen in England
3.165.
CH: They do, they
do but not quite the same way, they’re more, they’re probably fifty
years behind us there
3.166.
AW: We’re
talking about France are we
3.167.
CH: In France in
particularly, in Ireland, I’ve done quite a bit in Ireland, in Ireland
the markets are a very big thing there but they’re now, they’re now
going more to direct selling but their store markets are very big,
because
Ireland still exports a lot of store stock, their, their store markets
are
still very big but their fat markets for the stuff that’s going
straight
for, for again for the supermarkets that more or less nearly all goes
dead
weight
3.168.
[mobile phone buzzes]
3.169.
CH: That’s
typical isn’t it
3.170.
CH: Go on, start
again
3.171.
CH: I’ll
turn it off
3.172.
AW: Does, hmm, is
there, hmm, is it, how much communication is there via the internet, I
mean in
terms of selling and marketing, or is it over the phone, when there’s
communication with, with the
3.173.
CH: No, I think,
I think I mentioned this Aberdeen and Northern Marts site, which is
trying very
hard, umm, if you go back ten, err, fifteen years, all the markets
tried to get
very heavily involved in these telesales operations, I don’t know
if you’ve heard about those, umm, whereby they would, they were, it was
done on the television screen, you could see like, ten guys bidding for
your
stock, somebody came round with a cine-camera and all the big markets
thought
that was the way forward, they spent a fortune doing it, but it all
failed
because there wasn’t the interaction between the individuals, you know
people need to be, you need the hype to make a market, you need the
hype, Aberdeen
and Northern Marts are trying, they’ve got a very good site now, and
they’re doing it on the internet with a disk, umm, Farmers Weekly have
got a site, there’s a lot of different people trying to do these sites,
but I feel with the internet, and this is just a personal view, and
it’s
not only with livestock, but unless you get one model, or one sales
site that
everybody is using you’re not exposed to as many people as you think
you
are, you know, who’s reading the Farmer’s Weekly site, maybe twenty
other farmers a day that are looking for sheep, whereas international
there’s probably twenty thousand, so you need to be linked somehow to
the
whole market place, which is what the internet was supposed to be
about, but it
doesn’t actually work, at least I’ve never make it work that way,
perhaps it’s me, but
3.174.
AW: There’s
a social side as well to those umm, those markets
3.175.
CH: Umm
3.176.
AW: Has,
that’s gone as well has it
3.177.
CH: Well, I think
I’ve already expressed, expressed my view on that, I feel very, very
strongly, my way of life has totally been destroyed, that was, the
markets were
my way of life, and err
3.178.
AW: Do you think
farming is more isolated now
3.179.
CH: Oh
definitely, definitely, but I’m not isolated because I’ve done
other things
3.180.
AW: Sure
3.181.
CH: If I was just
farming, as, I feel, Government would like to see me, then, I’d be very
isolated, bio-security and all the rest of it, you know, they’d prefer
I
didn’t come off the farm
3.182.
AW: And, and,
there’s even now a rural stress line, I think, that was umm, that was
certainly running during the foot and mouth
3.183.
CH: Oh yeah, umm,
I mean foot and mouth was very stressful experience for everybody,
whether you
had it or not, it’s very stressful because you couldn’t market, you
couldn’t move, you know
3.184.
AW: So, with that
isolation do you, do you think, umm, do you think it’s made farming a
less attractive career
3.185.
CH: I think, umm,
yes I think it has, yeah, I don’t think it’s specifically the isolation
but probably, you said about the stress line, I think if you look
statistically
farming has got one of the highest suicide rates, but, it’s even higher
if you analysis that, because normally these guys are on hill farms
that are
totally isolated, you know, they’re probably three times as likely to
kill themselves as somebody that’s like, like me that lives in suburbia
or, you know I’m like the garage guy up the road, you know, that’s
probably the percentages, but there they are very isolated and
depression sets
in if you’re, isolated and you feel bad, don’t it
3.186.
AW: How, how much
information do you have with neighbouring farms, around here, how many
farms
are there that border on you here
3.187.
CH: There would
be, that actually touch me, one, two, and if we count the motorway as
the other
boundary, three, four, so four farms that actually touch, if we include
the
motorway, and how often would I speak with them, not at all
3.188.
AW: Are they, do
they farm, err, what do they farm, are they in a similar kind of crops
3.189.
CH: Err, one
farmer, he’s got a mega farming enterprise, do an exceedingly good job,
they’d have a lot of employees, I guess they’d farm, five, ten
thousand acres, umm, I put my hand up, we pass in the vans, you know,
we put
our hands up, umm, the other guy is purely arable, and he would have,
probably
about a thousand acres of arable, umm, one chap’s got a small suckler
herd and, the others would be, can’t remember which one, oh yeah the
other ones an absentee sort of corn farmer
3.190.
AW: Do you think
you would have previously met them at the market
3.191.
CH: Definitely
3.192.
AW: So it
3.193.
CH: Not all of
them, but some of them in different markets, and of course the guy who
has the
five thousand acres, historically that would probably been, not fifty
different
farmers but it might have been forty different farmers who would have
been
farming that land, so he’s replaced forty people that would have been
at
those different markets
3.194.
AW: Are you, are
you a member of the NFU
3.195.
CH: No
3.196.
AW: You’re
not, have you, have you, sounds like Mc Carthy, have you ever been a
member of
the NFU
3.197.
CH: No I
haven’t, no
3.198.
AW: Do think
it’s a useful organisation
3.199.
CH: No I
don’t
3.200.
AW: And have, is
that an opinion that you’ve held since you started farming
3.201.
CH: Yup
3.202.
AW: Why do, why
do you say that
3.203.
CH: Umm, because
I don’t think you’ll ever get, farmers to, it’s a different
world in the UK, because farming is so varied from the people that are
small
family farmers on rented land, to mega wealthy enterprises and they all
have a
different agenda, Unions are only good if people stand together, umm,
if you
take France for example, because there’s such a large percentage of the
population that are, the voting population, if the French agriculture
wants
something, and, and the, if the French public support the French
farmers, I think
there’s something like seventy six percent of the umm, French public
think that they should have more subsidies over there, whereas here you
probably say it’d be ten or fifteen per cent, but umm, if they want
something they’ll all, they’ll all blockade the roads, tip potatoes
on the road, whatever, but here, it will never work that way because
there’s, it’s such a small population in, overall, and
they’ve all got different agendas, they’re, they’re all
varied so it’s so different varied, varied
3.204.
AW: So the NFU,
the NFU offers quite a number of services umm, like insurance and, etc,
I
don’t know if you have to be a member of the NFU to take those out
3.205.
CH: I don’t
think so I mean they spent a lot of money advertising on tele didn’t
they
with their NFU insurance, I would think that’s, I don’t even know
if that’s part of it now
3.206.
AW: So
you’ve never needed to, or wanted to approach them for any of those
kind
of services, or
3.207.
CH: Umm, I think
maybe once or twice over the years I might have rung them for advice on
something, umm, and they probably been quite happy to give it to me,
you know,
although I’m not a member, you know, although I’m not a member I
still think it’s there, it’s a body that’s there, umm
3.208.
??here??
3.209.
AW: Can you think
of alternatives to the NFU, or do you think if it’s such a broad, so,
there is so, it’s such a broad swath of farmers it would be better to
have err, a number of farming unions?
3.210.
CH: Well, I
suppose there is now. If you look at the CLA, the Country Land Owner’s
Association, you know then that’s one extreme. We have, I have been a
member of the CLA and they have helped historically on different
things, umm
with legal points and that sort of thing, and then you could go the
other
extreme maybe which is the Tenant Farmer’s Association, but that just
supports what I was saying earlier, it’s such a varied group of people
and now even more isolated than it was before, because there’s no
coming
together point and I don’t see how the NFU can get people together
3.211.
AW: So there
isn’t, there isn’t umm, obviously there’s a local branch of
the NFU but umm that isn’t something you’ve ever thought was
important really, at all, well, I don’t know, is it?
3.212.
CH: It’s
not been important to me personally. If it is for other people then
that’s great, it’s great for them, I don’t, I don’t
knock it at all, but for me personally it’s not been important.
3.213.
AW: Do you think
it’s important in farming at all, in
3.214.
CH: I don’t
think they achieve very much, personally, I think, you know going back
to my
own experience on the foot and mouth issue, which I’ve no doubt
we’ll come to in a while, umm, the NF, the local NFU guy, I think David
Orpwood isn’t it? You’ll interview him no doubt, he made some
most unfortunate comments about two pet lambs that I was supposed to
have had
up the road, but, which he hadn’t even checked it out, and he put his
name to the NFU and I’d got the, he, he’d got me working with the
ministry against the local community, you know, well it was ridiculous,
I mean
the guy, he, he just something off the cuff, in a position of power,
and as a
politician if he’s put himself in, head of the NFU, he should research
it
first
3.215.
AW: So he should
have contacted you?
3.216.
CH: He never
contacted me once. He was quite happy to make comments in the newspaper
on, on
behalf of the NFU, that I’d got two pet lambs that hadn’t been
destroyed and I’d deliberately with held these pet lambs from the
Ministry, you know, absolutely ridiculous
3.217.
AW: Where other
farmers supportive of you, err, your neighbouring farmers, during that
crises
3.218.
CH: Not very. One
or two were very nice, generally pretty hostile, some actively
offensive that I
got nasty phone calls at night, you know, for about a fortnight from
some
people
3.219.
AW: Could you see
a pattern there, were they livestock owners and the other ones not
3.220.
CH: They were
usually, they, they weren’t usually like serious farmers, umm, it was
usually somebody that got, like there was one particular lady, and I
won’t mention any names, who gave me a lot of hostile phone calls and
she’s got five cows, you know, totally a hobby farmer, and, ranting and
raving at me, oh you’ve got all these sheep, you got, you deal in
sheep,
it’s your fault, you bought it on, blah, blah, blah, well, it could
have
been anybody couldn’t it
3.221.
AW: I’m
going to go onto this now and this is about the crises in farming, well
do you
think there is a farming crises, in, in this country, in the UK?
3.222.
CH: Umm, I think
farming is evolving and I’m not sure if the politicians are,
controlling
how it’s happening, to how they want it to happen, err, I think the way
that it’s going at the moment, the UK will probably be producing a lot
less in a few years time than it is at the moment, if we’re going to go
the environmental route then I think we should have a direction from
Government
that’s what we should do and do it at a stroke, umm, my personal view
is
now on, I don’t know if you want to put my view
3.223.
AW: Oh absolutely,
it’s what you think
3.224.
CH: My personal
view on this is I can’t for the life of me understand with this crises
with the foot and mouth, at a stoke Government should have said, right
the
whole of the UK is going to be organic, we will use no sprays, no
fertiliser,
period, we will have no production subsides at all but, we will pay you
conservation grants, your conversion grants for five years, and our
production
in the UK would have fallen by, probably sixty percent, I think the
general
public would have loved it, the Government would have had the power to
control
imports on health basis because we’d be virtually the only, we’d be
the only country then, certainly in Europe, one of the only ones in the
World
apart from one or two of these banana islands that have gone totally
organic,
and they could control imports to control our price, now there’s only
one
fault in that, and that is the oil companies wouldn’t sell the sprays
and
the fertilisers, so simple
3.225.
AW: And do you
think, would, do you think that would have been profitable for you, if
you’d gone organic
3.226.
CH: Umm, I
don’t think it would have made any difference to me, because the market
would have found it’s own level, as I say, the Government could have
controlled imports, to have fixed, okay if you want to, same as the
American’s, to have fixed your home price
3.227.
AW: Now there,
there’s, people are saying crises, foot and mouth, BSE
3.228.
CH: Yup
3.229.
AW: They might be
talking about crises in general, I mean can you think of other things
that,
might be considered a crisis
3.230.
CH:
umm
3.231.
AW: in farming
3.232.
CH: Salmonella in
chickens, err SVD in pigs, it’s going to be scrape in sheep, BSE in
cattle, foot and mouth was the last thing, you know, I speak to, going
back to
these French guys, you speak to French farmers, they say, well all your
meat
must be terrible, you know, cause all our press wants to do push all
these
things, but they’ve got all these diseases over there just the same,
but
it’s not political thing, umm, so there’ll be a crisis every week
but the amazing thing out of these crises to me, is the general public,
because
a lot of these crisis are farmer made, you know the general public to
me have
been incredibly supportive, and we’ll come on to that when we go back
to
the foot and mouth thing, but it’s quite touching, you know, I said
that
I had hostile reaction from some farmers, umm, I had sixty letters sent
to me
from general public who didn’t even know me, saying, oh we’re so
sorry, we used to see your sheep, we love to see your sheep in the
field, you
know, can we help, do anything? Very touching
3.233.
AW: Were you
surprised to get those letters?
3.234.
CH: I was
absolutely gob smacked, absolutely gob smacked, to the extent that the
best one
I had was, and it’s worth mentioning, I have the Oxford Bus Company
Metal
Detectors come round metal detecting, and there’s probably sixty of the
guys that come round and every time they come they give me two quid,
each,
which is quite nice thank-you, and umm, course they couldn’t come, they
called an emergency meeting, put their two quid in and sent me a cheque
for
sixty quid, saying take your miss’s out for dinner, salt of the earth
guys
3.235.
AW: Did you, you
were surprised at that public reaction? Were you
3.236.
CH: I was gob
smacked, yeah, I mean you’d expect the ones from the religious people
and
that sort of thing, had various religious people writing, you’d expect
that, but not from the people that drive up and down the road, and
quite a few
people sort of rang me as well, and said where can we buy local
produced meet,
you know, the general public don’t make the crises in this country,
it’s the farming community that do themselves. Personal view
3.237.
AW: Sure,
absolutely, well that’s what it’s about
3.238.
CH: Yeah, yeah, I
understand that, yeah
3.239.
AW: So you,
it’s the farming community, what about the rest of the world, do you
think there’s a crisis outside of this country
3.240.
CH: I think umm, for
the affluent countries, there’s an over production of protein at the
moment, in the world, umm, now I can’t quite understand myself, I
suppose
it’s because there’s so land worldwide that’s under
agricultural production that wasn’t forty or fifty years ago, umm, but
one would think as the world becomes more affluent you would need more
protein
to feed the world but it doesn’t seem to be that way for some reason,
umm, if you look in places like Canada, I was in Canada three, four
years ago
and it’s so vast that they, they could probably produce enough food in
Canada to feed the world anyway, if they put it all to proper use, umm,
so
probably what we produce here is totally insignificant world wide, umm,
I think
I might have gone off on a tangent now, but I mean the other thing
that’s
just going to come in as Eastern Europe comes into the EEC, their going
to be
able to produce food there, far cheaper than we can, umm, for many
years to
come, because their land is more fertile, they capable of growing root
crops,
double cropping this sort of thing, the climate’s probably better in
many
places, umm, going back to what I say, if you take England as a whole,
England
is a prime place for going organic, all the hills, what percentage of
the UK is
hill land, vast percentage, Wales, I say England, Wales, the Pennines,
Scotland, it’s virtually organic now anyway
3.241.
AW: Going back to
the farming crises, presumably, foot and mouth, was for you, the most
significant and important, is that right?
3.242.
CH: Umm, in, yes,
definitely, it was, it takes over your life totally
3.243.
AW: Take me
through what that was like, when did it start, when did you become
aware of it?
3.244.
CH: Umm, well
became aware of foot and mouth in the Country, I believe it was
towards,
can’t remember towards the beginning of February, middle of February,
when the first outbreaks were diagnosed, I mean the whole thing to me
seems
most peculiar because we hear all these stories about the Government
checking
out for railway sleepers and the availability of railway sleepers
pre-Christmas, and it all seems most peculiar that
3.245.
AW: These were
used in the pyres in
3.246.
CH: Yeah, that
these things were going on and nobody new about it, and I can’t
understand for the life of me why foot and mouth hit this country and
no other
countries in Europe, I’m, you know, I’ve had various veterinary umm
people who have studied foot and mouth worldwide that have come here
and
interviewed me as well about this foot and mouth thing, and there,
there’s a lot of them doing their own private studies into it, and they
all find it incredibly suspect that it suddenly happened here, I, I’d
personally don’t believe it just happened I believe it was a deliberate
thing, now I don’t think that’s a, a Government promoted thing, I
think it was probably an ALF or something like that promoted thing that
started
the job off, but anyway going back to that, we first umm, were aware of
it when
the first outbreaks happened, and I had some sheep, some in-lamb ewes
which had
been away on keep in Norfolk, and
3.247.
AW: Did you hear
about that on the, the national news?
3.248.
CH: The national
news
3.249.
AW: The
television news do you think?
3.250.
CH: Yeah, the
television and in the various markets that we were going to at that
time, but I
had some ewes that had been away all winter and bought them back here
for
lambing and, unfortunately for me, the lorry that picked them up had
taken ewes
from Northampton market to an abattoir in Romford, and then gone from
Romford
to pick up my ewes and brought my ewes back here, and the ewes they
picked-up
from Northampton Market had got foot and mouth, now I didn’t realise
that
but when the ewes came back here, obviously I was watching them,
because you
do, I was feeding them and umm, the third day they were here I said,
I’m
not quite happy with them but you’re always suspicious of your own
because you’re in the trade, you don’t want to be the idiot that
says, oh I’ve got foot and mouth and you haven’t, and umm, the
third day I wasn’t happy with them, so I rung the local vet and said I
reckon these sheep have got foot and mouth, and he said, oh, no, no,
they’ll be alright, anyway the next day, I spoke to one of my friend,
he
didn’t even come out, he was that laid-back about it, the next day I
spoke to one of my friends that had seen it before and he explained the
symptoms on sheep to me, and that convinced me that I had got foot and
mouth,
so I then immediately rang the ministry, ministry vet up and he came
out, well
he’d never seen it before either so he didn’t know what he was
looking for, he was looking in text books you know, and so he took a
blood
sample away
3.251.
AW: Are they, are
they, umm, are they close the ministry vet, where, where about’s, do
you
remember where they come from?
3.252.
CH: Reading
3.253.
AW: Reading?
3.254.
CH: Yeah, he was
very good, I mean, nice guy, umm, and he’d never seen it either so he,
he
hadn’t a clue what he was looking for, because I think like all of us
imagine it’s a raging horrific disease and of course with sheep
it’s not
3.255.
It’s just a flu,
and umm, but the tell tale symptom is, they, they have a horny pad,
they only
have teeth at the bottom of the month, I don’t know if you know that,
and
they’d chew on a horny pad on the top, and that’s got a very tough
skin on, but when they get the peak of the fever, which you wouldn’t
diagnose,
which lasts, half an hour, the roof of the mouth blisters, so then if
you push
it with your finger, it’ll just flake off, that makes their mouth sore,
for a fortnight afterwards, so they won’t eat much, that makes them
thin,
okay, so that’s, that is the tell tale symptom, plus a little bit of
hobbling if you catch them just when they’ve got this fever, then
they’ll be better, umm, anyway, the Ministry vet took blood samples and
he rang me on the Saturday and said it’s positive, on the Sunday
the slaughter men turned up, he took blood samples on Friday, Saturday
it was
positive, Sunday the slaughter men turned up.
3.256.
AW: Were you
surprised when he found you and said it was foot and mouth
3.257.
CH: No. I knew it
was foot and mouth, but I’d never seen it and if that makes sense, and
as
I explained to you before, I didn’t want ot raise the alarm for a false
alarm, but once that guy had told me about this pad in the mouth, I
know that
was foot and mouth, umm, and I think because we acted so quickly we
managed to
contain it here, so, Saturday, umm, blood tests were positive, Sunday
the
slaughter men moved in, and we shot them all and Monday evening we
finished the
funeral pyre at like, two in the morning and set light to it and
Tuesday they
were gone
3.258.
AW: Were you,
umm, was the shooting the sheep and the building of the funeral pyre
were you
involved in that
3.259.
CH: Yeah, and my
boy, and my wife
3.260.
AW: and err, was
that difficult for you
3.261.
CH: Umm, nobody
likes killing animals for no purpose, seeing little baby lambs being
shoot and
even to shoot a baby lamb is very difficult cause baby’s are full of
life
and they don’t want to die, if you get an old thing it dies, I know
that
probably doesn’t make sense to you
3.262.
AW: Was it quite
a young flock at that time, was it?
3.263.
CH: They were
ewes and lambs, so you know, you got a ewe, and if you’ve had one in
the
kitchen like, my wife was in tears because you have pet lambs in the
kitchen,
you get them strong enough, you put them out on a ewe, you fight with
that ewe
for a fortnight to get her to mother them, then you put them on a field
and
she’s really proud of them and you walk them in and pop, you’re
killing them, and you know it’s very emotional, don’t get me wrong,
but then suddenly and I particularly took my young boy down there, who
was into
farming, cause I thought it was quite an experience, but then it’s like
in a way climbing a mountain and, the objective is to get to the summit
and our
objective was to get the animals all dead, and to build a funeral pyre
and get
them burnt, and so we worked like, the first day we did twenty two
hours
getting, everybody worked really hard, the ministry and we worked hard,
and
because it was the first funeral pyre they’d built, they were doing it
absolutely to the book, so they didn’t know if it would work or
anything
and I couldn’t believe for one minute that it would work, but I know
this
sounds totally weird but actually when we’d got it all finished and we
actually lit the pyre, and it burnt, it was almost like a celebration.
Does
that make sense? Because we’d all worked so hard, and your human
brain’s so focused, you know, it’s very emotional but then
you’ve got a job to do, and you do it, and from my point of view, that
was not the worst bit, my worst bit was, like about two days later,
when the
kids could go back to school, my wife could go back to work, but I
wasn’t
allowed off the farm, for two weeks, so I was suddenly here on my own,
and that
was pretty morbid
3.264.
AW: How many
sheep came onto the farm to kill the sheep and build that pyre?
3.265.
CH: We had two
slaughter men, and myself, and my boy, to kill the sheep, and umm
3.266.
AW: And how many
sheep were there?
3.267.
CH: Err we had, I
should think, about a thousand here, that’s ewes and lambs
3.268.
AW: And how long
did that pyre burn for?
3.269.
CH: There
wasn’t a lot left of it in the morning, so we set light to it about one
o’clock and there wasn’t an awful lot left sort of nine
o’clock the next morning, but having said that, it was still smoking
for,
two or three days, but I mean, do you want me to go into the design?
3.270.
AW: Yeah, tell me
something about it
3.271.
CH: I mean the
design sort evolved over the previous foot and mouth outbreaks and they
dig a
trench, or they were, they dig a trench about five foot wide and about
five
foot deep, and you put a railway sleeper over the top of that trench
with a gap
of about, three inches between each sleeper, and then on top of those
railway
sleepers you put broken pallets, and on top of the broken pallets you
put a
layer of straw and then on top of the straw you put so many tonnes of
coal, and
then on top of the coal, you put your carcasses, then they spray them
with diesel
and it’s just incredible, it burns to nothing, it’s gone, because
what, what one never realises of course, flesh burns, cause there’s a
lot
of fat in it.
3.272.
AW: And what was
left at the end, ash?
3.273.
CH: Yeah,
nothing, just white ash.
3.274.
AW: Was it close
to the house here?
3.275.
CH: No, umm,
about half a mile.
3.276.
AW: And
afterwards, did you go back and look at it at all
3.277.
CH: Oh yeah.
3.278.
AW: You were here
on, what were you thinking when you were here on your own in the house?
3.279.
CH: Umm, I think
quite naturally you think about the animals that you knew personally,
err,
doesn’t matter how hard you are, you still if you reared a pet lamb, if
you’ve had sort, an experience with a sheep that was sick and you kept
it
alive like this year I had, for example, one ewe that had been in cast
for
about a week, I don’t know if you know what cast is, but it means they
can’t get up, they get up on their back, couldn’t get up, and I
perceived, and perceived with her and she got up and she’s had two
lambs,
well I know that ewe personally, you know, she becomes a mate if that
makes
sense, so you think about those thinks, but you get on with it and you
go on,
you know, umm.
3.280.
AW: What
was the biggest change that you noticed once, err
3.281.
CH: Nothing,
nothing was here, no livestock, that’s the biggest change, suddenly
there’s no livestock in the fields and, never in my life had I seen the
fields empty
3.282.
AW: Would have,
so there was completely silent
3.283.
CH: Well I
wouldn’t say it was
3.284.
AW: Well
3.285.
CH: it’s
never silent here because we’ve got a motorway by the side, but umm,
from
the point of view of livestock, yes, you’ve still got you’re birds
and everything else about but it is, it is quite weird.
3.286.
AW: And what did
you think at that time, immediately afterwards that you’d be doing. Did
you think that was the end of farming here?
3.287.
CH: Well of
course my, no I didn’t, umm, because my biggest problem then was I’d
still got four thousand sheep away at different farms, at keep, so
suddenly I
was then in the trap, as other people were, where you couldn’t move
these
sheep, well the bulk of mine were up in Lincoln on vegetables and so
within,
like two weeks, they were starving, cause there’s no grass you can put
them onto, so then for the next four weeks after that, I was working
with the
RSPCA getting them shoot and buried up there, on the welfare cull,
which you
know was again, I, I wasn’t, I had like a week here and suddenly that
had
taken over my life on that job so I was, suddenly involved with that,
which one
had to do, you know, it’s no good you can’t just leave them there.
3.288.
AW: And what
happened to those sheep when they were shoot?
3.289.
CH: They were shot
and taken to landfill.
3.290.
AW: Did you loose
a lot of money?
3.291.
CH: Umm, no I
think the compensation was, very fair for the market day value, I’m
sure
some people may have made money out of it and some people probably lost
money
out of it, but personally I believe that all the compensation money
should have
been published in the local papers, as each farmer got it, and the
valuation
sheets published, and then there could have been no back-biting, umm,
you know
I had about a thousand sheep killed with the foot and mouth down here,
and I
think, my, my bill, my cheque was something like thirty two thousand,
so
that’s easy to work out, that’s thirty two pound a head, umm, which
included twenty six of my stock rams, which were valued at a hundred
and
seventy five pounds each, which on the day seemed like, a lot of money,
umm,
but with the benefit of hindsight you couldn’t go back and buy them for
that money, in the autumn because then they’d probably have been four
or
five hundred quid each, so I was, I was not at all, displeased with the
compensation money I get, I got, but of course, what one has to
remember
is, from a pure farming point of view, you have no other income then
for twelve
months, so it doesn’t stop there, you’ve still got your bank, I’m
sure a lot of people would have been in trouble with the bank where
they’d had that one cheque in, the bank would have had a cheque and
they
probably won’t be allowed to restock, even now, you know, because the
bank won’t let them go again.
3.292.
AW: You said
about publishing the newspaper, compensation and backbiting. Was there
much
backbiting for you?
3.293.
CH: Umm, there
was a lot of backbiting going on, yeah, a lot of backbiting, umm, you
wouldn’t see it personally yourself, umm, I would have had one or two
nasty phone calls from people, which I’ve told you about already, but
I’ve got friends were still, like, Thame market, I explained to you was
still going on, and, I had one particular guy there that was ringing me
from,
you know, the local gossip there, and there was a lot of people causing
a lot,
or trying to cause a lot of trouble, but that’s human nature, I mean I
expect it’s human nature.
3.294.
AW: So of course
you couldn’t go to those markets, you had to
3.295.
CH: I
couldn’t at that particular time, no, well those markets were shut
down,
but they were still having their group meetings and that sort of thing
there,
and this guys was one of the directors, so he was always involved, and
umm,
equally because I was so closely involved with the Ministry, I knew
more about
what was going on politically than they would, so of course they were
ringing
me to see what was happening on the relaxation of the movement licences
and all
this sort of thing, because I was sort of like, in the middle of it,
not only
with the Ministry vets but with the, my local MP and the Ministry in
London,
you know, better stop this now, got a load of kids coming in
3.296.
AW: Okay,
let’s.
3.297.
CH: We’ll
stop and start again.
3.298.
AW: Yeah,
that’s it.
3.299.
AW: Right, umm, you
were telling me about foot and mouth, how it was, on this farm, and how
it was
for you, I want to ask you something, you said you had, I think, four
thousand
sheep in Lincolnshire, was it?
3.300.
CH: Yeah.
3.301.
AW: Umm, do you
think when you started in farming, I mean obviously, you had fewer
sheep then
but, did you, where they taken off the farm, for winter, etc, or
3.302.
CH: Yeah, yeah
3.303.
AW: They were, so
that.
3.304.
CH: You’re
obviously talking smaller numbers then, umm, because haulage and that
sort of
thing was that much cheaper
3.305.
[AW picks up in-ear
headphone from table]
3.306.
AW: Let me just,
sorry, I need to put this in my ear otherwise, I can’t hear if it
works.
Yeah, that’s fine.
3.307.
CH: Yeah, as I
was saying, we had fewer numbers, they still went away for winter keep
and
winter grazing, because we had so much livestock on the home farm we
couldn’t keep it back here in the winter.
3.308.
AW: Would it be
taken as, to Lincolnshire, or did you?
3.309.
CH: No
3.310.
AW: Have you
always been
3.311.
CH: No
3.312.
AW: going to the
same farms, or?
3.313.
CH: Umm, some of
them, I mean, some of them, yeah, but there’s some very big estates
there, one estate I’ve been using for, five years, six years,
obviously,
not going back twenty years, but that one estate there is thirty two
thousand
acres, which is like vast and it’s lovely dry land, they have a lot of
vegetables, they have a lot of lucerne so there’s the sheep grazing in
the winter for them is to make, a way of maintaining their growing
crops, hum,
hum, and obviously it works well for us as well.
3.314.
AW: So you had to
kill four thousand sheep because, on humanitarian grounds cause they
were
starving, is that right?
3.315.
CH: Starving and we
got some lambing, in mud, err, on the side of the road, umm, basically
on the
welfare scheme, yeah, we, we got our sheep in, onto the welfare scheme,
we were
the first ones I think, we actually killed, or the RSPCA, who worked
exceedingly well, umm with us, err
3.316.
AW: Did you
contact them or did they contact you?
3.317.
CH: They
contacted me, and then I contacted a guy called, I think his name was,
err, Wass,
Chief Inspector Was, who was the boss up there, and I got him involved,
and he
went down and looked at these sheep, and he said, what’s going on, I
said, I’ve said to the Ministry that they need killing, because we
can’t move them, and the Ministry won’t let me kill them, because
I’d offered to go up there with the slaughter men, because I got the
slaughter men and, I knew I how to do the funeral pyre and everything
from the
experience here, I said, I will do it, but you need to tell me, that I
can do
it, the Ministry were dithering at that stage, they didn’t know what to
do, when I say the Ministry, this was Government in London, I got this
guy Wass
involved, he went straight to Whitehall, and, he went into Whitehall
and said
look I’m going to kill these sheep if you don’t pay Mr Hawes and
sort him out, then the RSPCA will sue you, and the next day he had the
orders,
orders the RSPCA out and by night they’d killed the lot.
3.318.
AW: How long did
that take?
3.319.
CH: Umm, I think
it took the best part of a day to, no he didn’t the four thousand but
in
this particular flock, which was about five hundred, umm, took them
about a day
to kill them, they put them in a heap and they laid there for about a
week
until I got the rest in onto the cull, onto the welfare cull, and then
we
picked them up, we picked those ones up but the others, when the
lorries came
in and they went to landfill.
3.320.
AW: So you were
here, you were stuck on this house for two weeks, is that right?
3.321.
CH: Yeah
3.322.
AW: Immediately
after
3.323.
CH: Yeah
3.324.
AW: Your flock at
the farm
3.325.
CH: Something
like that
3.326.
AW: Was killed,
and then you went up to Lincolnshire and that was five hundred more
3.327.
CH: Well I
wasn’t involved in the cull with the five hundred, but I was involved
in
the welfare cull with the rest, so when I got up there by the time I
got up
there, the RSPCA had already done their bit and, we then had like three
days up
there killing the other sheep that we’d got up there.
3.328.
AW: Was your
family involved in that as well?
3.329.
CH: Yeah my son
came up with me, err young son came up with me.
3.330.
AW: Do you think
that’s a, do you think that’s changed his opinion of farming of
sheep?
3.331.
CH: Umm, I
don’t think it’s changed his opinion of sheep
3.332.
AW: How old is he
by the way?
3.333.
CH: He was twelve
then, umm, I don’t think it’s changed his opinion of sheep, umm,
but I think it’s certainly broadened his outlook on life in general,
umm,
you know he’s worked with, a team of slaughter men, he’s seen the
end results of foot and mouth, which, he’ll never forget
3.334.
AW: So that was
five hundred in Lincolnshire, what about your other flocks?
3.335.
CH: Well we had
another three and half thousand up there, which all went on the welfare
cull as
I say over the next two or three days, err, we had some more in
Nottingham,
which were ewes lambing, but they were okay, they’d got plenty of grass
there, so we lambed those ewes down, and they stayed on that farm, and
umm, the
lambs and the ewes went for killing back into the meat chain, where
everything
got sorted out in June, I think they went in June, err, I had another
about six
hundred down in France, which I’ve said to you, umm, they got caught up
in the issue because, they were sent to France before January 31st,
any English sheep that were in France post January 31st,
were
automatically slaughtered, mine were there before January 31st
so
they were blood tested twice and, obviously proved clear, the local
umm, they
weren’t allowed to kill them because the French didn’t know what to
do with them, umm, so we couldn’t kill them until, must have been
about,
the beginning of May when they said we could put them back into the
meat chain,
they’d been housed all this time, so what would have been like, twenty
kilo lambs were about thirty kilo lambs, unbeknown to us, we sold them
into the
abattoir as English lambs, the umm, French wholesaler that we sold them
to, he
then sold, he then marked them up as French lambs because there’s
always
a premium, the local French NFU, got a tip off from one of the abattoir
workers, he broke into the abattoir, the local French NFU broke in the
abattoir
that night, slashed all the carcasses, went to this young English guy
who’d been looking after them, to his farm, held him at ransom, and
they
had to get the police out, so we then had a fortnight of stress, with
the umm,
local French NFU, cause they thought we’d sold them as French lamb,
which
of cause we hadn’t, unbelievable, and then when they did, when they
realised that he hadn’t sold them as French lamb it was a French
wholesaler who had sold them as French lamb, they actually did come
back and
apologise to him, but umm, there was a lot of trouble down there,
lot of
trouble.
3.336.
AW: So you,
you’d get any support from the NFU, you had that situation in France
3.337.
CH: Yeah,
unbelievably in France, it was quite unbelievable, because there’s a
lot
of young English down there, and several of the other English farmers
down
there were actually picketing my farm down there, which it wasn’t
specifically French against English, it was just interesting to see
that they
were part of that community, they felt threatened obviously, because,
for
whatever reason, and um, it was just interesting thing, there
3.338.
AW: Do you think
you were shunned, during that time
3.339.
CH: Not personally,
no, I don’t thing so, I mean some people were hostile as I explained, I
had some hostile phone calls and that sort of thing, but I didn’t feel
it, particularly, no
3.340.
AW: And what
about since then, have, have you, you
3.341.
CH: I mean
it’s a very stressful thing for other people, when we were killing, on
the welfare cull, up in Lincoln there was one, farmer up there who land
it was,
were the sheep was, where the sheep were grazing, and, we got
everything to
kill these sheep, we told him we were going to, but because, we were
actually
going to do it and he could see it happening, he came out and started
ranting
and raving in the field, and saying you know, you can go, the slaughter
men
aren’t going to kill anything here, we aren’t going to kill any of
these sheep, they should be going into the meat chain, etc, etc,
because the
stress got to him, he couldn’t coupe with it, but he went away, and we
did the job, and then unbelievably, the next year he rang me, this
year, and
said, did I want his keep again.
3.342.
AW: At the time,
how did you react to him?
3.343.
CH: I was just
cool and, you know, there’s no point in everybody shouting at each
other,
I just said, you know, we’re here to do a job, they can’t go into
the meat chain, you can’t move them, I tried to explain the reality of
the situation to him, I understood his frustration, but you know, it’s
no
good everybody shouting and getting no where, umm, which I say, this
year he
offered me his keep again.
3.344.
AW: And since
then, you, you, you haven’t restocked?
3.345.
CH: I have
restocked, yeah.
3.346.
AW: You have
restocked.
3.347.
CH: My view was
that, working within the umm, time limits that were set by the Ministry
from
there previous experience of the foot and mouth, the sooner the got my
farm’s, or land here restocked, the sooner we became officially clean,
the sooner that the movement restrictions would be lifted, in this
area, so the
whole area would be a clean area and then everybody could get back to
business
as quick as they could, umm, so the Ministry at Reading, I think told
me that
it was six weeks, there was a period of six weeks after the, final
cleansing,
or disinfection, that I could restock after six weeks, which I, wanted
to do,
umm, and I’ve explained the reasons why I felt it was the right thing
to
do, because the sooner we were auth, officially clean then everybody
could
start moving again, of course that upset an awful lot of people,
because I was
restocking, again it was fear and, naivety, um, they thought.
3.348.
AW: Do you think
they blamed you personally?
3.349.
CH: Umm,
certainly yeah, some of them, they wouldn’t think so now, but you know
it’s put a lot of pressure on everybody, and, even if we hadn’t had
foot and mouth they’d have still have the restrictions because it
became
a national thing, umm, I think with hind sight now the people would
look back
and all say that, they ought to say that if we hadn’t acted very
quickly
and properly then, there would probably have been, fifty, a hundred
outbreaks
in Oxfordshire, you know, I mean there were cattle the other side of
the fence
and they didn’t get it, so, had they got it, it would have spread to
the
next lot, and the next lot, and it’s only because people didn’t
know what was going on and weren’t, they had got their finger on the
button, in my opinion.
3.350.
AW: Where those
cattle slaughtered?
3.351.
CH: No, no, they
were monitored.
3.352.
AW: You said it
was very upsetting for your wife, umm, how about your children?
3.353.
CH: Umm, I think
the younger you are, yes I, definitely, the younger you are, the easier
you can
cope with trauma, umm, and, they see something happening and you accept
it very
quickly, without, looking at the, sort of, wastefulness of life and,
you don’t
look at the, sort of, deeper meanings of things, umm, and then once
you, you
start getting into it, it becomes, that is what you’re doing and just,
it’s, that’s the purpose of the, you know, the exercise is to get
the animals dead, get them burnt and, control the disease, hum, hum
3.354.
AW: How were the,
how were the, how was the local, the school that your children
attended, were
they, were they sympathetic?
3.355.
CH: The school
itself was excellent, umm, very, very, supportive, err some of the,
again, some
of the farming community were, a little bit hostile, they didn’t feel
they should have been back at school, umm, so yeah, there was a little
bit of,
a little bit of needle but not from the school itself, they were
incredibly
good, and bearing in mind that we’re not really a farming, not really a
farming school, I mean, there’s eight or none hundred pupils there, I
guess and.
3.356.
AW: What were,
your, umm
3.357.
CH: They go to
Marlborough at Woodstock, brilliant school, and err, the kids were
incredibly
supportive
3.358.
AW: And their
friends were they
3.359.
CH: Well I think
the friends were, umm, disappointed that, they couldn’t, couldn’t
come round here for a while, because obviously while we were under the
restrictions they couldn’t come round, umm, so for there point of view,
they missed doing that because being, being the farm, we’ve got the
quad
bikes and the scramblers and that sort of thing which they all enjoy,
you know,
they can do here which they can’t do in the village or the town.
3.360.
AW: Do you export
any of your sheep? Do, when they
3.361.
CH: I used to,
umm, as I explained that before, last year I had sheep fattening, umm,
in
France and historically I’ve exported pedigree sheep, umm, all over the
world, when I say all over the world, to many countries in the world
3.362.
AW: Some farmers
are concerned about, err the exchange rate and the euro, do you think
that’s significant?
3.363.
CH: I think that
is significant, umm
3.364.
AW: Does it put
you at a disadvantage?
3.365.
CH: I think of
more significance, is actually opening up the live export again,
because going
back to the points I made before, the, and again I think it’s a very
political, that the multiples will always try to stop live export
because it
gives them a direct competition, for example, if live export was open,
I could
go into the market tomorrow, and I say the market place, and I could
buy a
thousand lambs and I could probably pay more than any of the
supermarkets are
offering and beat them by twenty pence a kilo, and immediately I do
that
I’m creating a market, which is more, much more important the exchange
rate, it’s having the competition, creating the market place, if we
allow
the control in two or three different, I say five or six different
hands, the
jobs never going to work.
3.366.
AW: What about
the euro do think that will make any difference?
3.367.
CH: When I travel
over to France and Ireland and different places, the euro is so
brilliant and
easy to use, umm, but I think, yes from the trading point of view it
would make
it a lot easier and from the, and going over there on holiday, and that
sort of
thing it would make it a lot easier, but being British, I think the
euro ought
to be called the pound or you know, it’s just a psychological thing,
and
I don’t understand the, money markets in the world, but I mean, I think
in England we got, we’re the fifth largest, largest GDP in the world,
which must mostly come from insurance and money trading and that sort
of thing,
so, from an European point of view, if they could get sterling into
their
system I’m sure it would help the euro tremendously, from an English
point of view, I think we’d make an awful lot of profits, from the
financial markets, which maybe we might loose and, I don’t know if
that’s a good or bad thing. What do you think?
3.368.
AW: Well, umm
3.369.
CH: This is your
interview
3.370.
AW: Yes,
you’re right, it doesn’t matter what I think, huh, umm, one of the
recommendations of the Food and Farming Commission is to switch from
subsidising production to environmental subsidies, and it seems from
what
you’ve said that, that’s something which you support.
3.371.
CH: I would
support it, I don’t agree with subsidising at all. I think subside is
an
absolute nonsense.
3.372.
AW: Do you think
you could keep this farm without subsidies?
3.373.
CH: Umm, I think
within a year we would know, and I think it’s more likely to put out,
and
this isn’t a personal, err, criticism, but your mega-farmers, and you
mentioned your lady at, earlier on, that’s got six acres, without
subsidies, she doesn’t get subsidies for I guess for her pigs
3.374.
[Note: the reference to
‘you lady’ here is to another interview with Jane Bowler]
3.375.
AW: For pigs, no
she doesn’t.
3.376.
CH: But my
neighbour up the road here, that’s probably got five thousand acres
would
probably be getting, a hundred pound an acre on his arable, or there
abouts,
well that’s five hundred thousand, umm, I’ve got a friend
who’s got four hundred cattle that he grazes in the summer and,
that’s all he does, and he said that as long as he breaks even on the
cattle, he will make eighty thousand pounds a year profit, well it
would hurt
those guys, but I don’t think it would affect your, the person you were
talking to, you know, back to the thing, I don’t thing it would affect
me
that much, because I would then immediately stop farming for subsidies,
you’d get more people working on the land, and if you go back to your
environmental grants, if you want to be, if you want to subsidise then,
yes,
you should subsidies what the public want, and they want to see people
hedge
laying, but why shouldn’t a guy, I mean this is a particular point of
mine, why shouldn’t a man earn a hundred pounds a day hedge laying,
it’s not unreasonable, so pay sufficient grant so he gets a hundred
pound
a day, you’ll immediately employee a million people hedge laying,
because
you can out and work six days a week and earn six hundred pound a week,
so all
winter you’re return people to the land, it’s much better than
paying the guy up the road five hundred thousand for doing nothing,
while my
other friend eighty thousand for doing nothing, what a nonsense
3.377.
AW: Since you
started farming here, have you seen, umm, changes in wildlife, I mean
3.378.
CH: Yeah
3.379.
AW: There used to
be
3.380.
CH: Dramatically
in this last two years I’ve seen a return of, umm, many, many,
different
species of bird and with the motorway coming through, lots of different
species
came back in, and that may sound a bit of a nonsense, but the motorway
of
course, you’ve got vast tracks of rough land each side of the motorway,
which don’t get cut, they’re just left, and particularly with our
farm last year and the year before we started doing, or when we were
doing a
hundred percent set-a-side, everything comes back, I mean we’ve got sky
larks, the one think I have noticed is song thrushes, we have no song
thrushes,
which, for some unearthly known reason they have disappeared, but I
mean we got
the old fashion partridge, we got buzzards here which I’ve never seen
in
my life before last three years, we got barn owls, we got sky larks,
just to
name but a few, and, umm, it’s notable how dramatically they have
increased
3.381.
AW: Has the field
size increased since you’ve been farming?
3.382.
CH: I went
through the same thing as everybody else did, which was take all your
hedges
out and have one big field, and field size would have quadrupled I
suppose, hmm
3.383.
AW: Are there any
3.384.
CH: But then
that’s a natural thing that happens with farming, I mean, when you, you
wouldn’t have fields at all if wasn’t for farming, and err, one guy
came up with a brilliant idea, talking about conservation grants, and
he said
you shouldn’t be paid by the acre, you should paid by the meter of
hedgerow, brilliant, to my mind
3.385.
AW: Do you take
part in any, umm, particular environment schemes, or?
3.386.
CH: Yeah,
I’ve done two or three Stewardship schemes, umm, and any, any scheme
that
are available that look profitable I would do, we’re not, in an ESA,
and
umm we’re not in any other particularly sensitive areas, so it’s
only the Stewardship I’m eligible for, at the moment
3.387.
AW: There’s
the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, have you, you been in contact
with
them or any other similar organisation?
3.388.
CH: Yeah, because
I believe they come out to the umm, they come out to assess the
Stewardships,
don’t they, I think they’re the people that actually approve or,
refuse your Stewardship Application, because again there’s limited
funding available, what a nonsense, you know it’s a political con,
total
political con, you get as much money as you want for producing food
that’s not wanted and yet a stewardship grant for hedge laying or
whatever,
you have to compete for
3.389.
AW: Have you
applied for those?
3.390.
CH: Yes, I have,
yeah
3.391.
AW: And
they’ve been granted, you, did you say?
3.392.
CH: Umm,
I’ve got some approved and some, not approved
3.393.
AW: And what
measures are those?
3.394.
CH: Mostly hedge
laying, and, old pastures, umm, I would like to return, the arable
land,
I’d have an arable reversion, from the arable land back to grass land,
but unfortunately my landlords on that one, won’t allow it to happen,
umm, two reasons, one because that grant is the best and secondly, on a
personal level I do like to see the bird life and that about, which
since
we’re had the set-a-side has dramatically improved
3.395.
AW: Would you put
it down totally to the set-a-side?
3.396.
CH: Well no you
put the old grass land down and umm, you, I, don’t know the exact rules
and regulations but I think you, plant with the old grass varieties,
and then
you have stock at a low stocking density, you’re not allowed to apply
nitrates and that sort of thing
3.397.
AW: Sorry, what I
meant actually was, umm, the set-a-side that you have here, I think you
said,
in the last two years you noticed the wildlife, more wildlife
3.398.
CH: Yeah
3.399.
AW: And I
wondered if you put it down to that?
3.400.
CH: Yes.
3.401.
AW: Set-a-side
3.402.
CH: Yeah, so the,
the, when I say the, umm arable land that would include the set-a-side
would go
back to that arable reversion with the old grasses, which effectively
grow
naturally anyway, I think you can get one with natural regeneration
3.403.
AW: You’ve
been in sheep farming for some time, but how do you decide what to grow
or what
livestock to keep here?
3.404.
CH: Umm
3.405.
AW: Do you
continually reassess it, what’s
3.406.
CH: Yeah, I think
one reassess it according to the market place, umm, I think probably I
would
have a shorter term outlook now than I did historically, historically
when I
first started then I’d say I want to have a thousand breeding ewes and
I’ll produce so many lambs per annum, umm, now I would look at it, last
year for example, we bought twelve hundred mule thaves, mule tags,
which are
year old mules, which are good breeding sheep, because the market was
so low,
that we bought them at twenty five pounds each, which the year before,
as ewe
lambs they’d cost thirty five pounds but no body wanted them, we’ll
we thought they were go gamble to buy, to keep round to sell now with
lambs at
foot when people were restocking, and it’s not as good as we thought,
but
it was the right thing to do, so I take a much shorter outlook than I
would
want, hmm
3.407.
AW: So is, I
mean, there’s, from what you’ve said, there’s commercial,
umm, factors, whether it would work financially, umm, and do you think
there
are other factors like, um, well tradition, or
3.408.
CH: Umm
3.409.
AW: that come
into what you decide what to grow?
3.410.
CH: For me
personally, tradition is nearly gone, umm, I think for people that are
much
more traditional farmers then the word is traditional, it’s still very
much imprinted, for me personally it’s still imprinted on my mind, you
know, you still think that you should do those things, but I don’t
actually follow them through so much
3.411.
AW: And in a
sense, you had a, did you have a very real chance when after the foot
and
mouth, to change direction?
3.412.
CH: Yes
3.413.
AW: Did you
consider completely changing direction? Did you consider even leaving
farming
at that point?
3.414.
CH: No I
didn’t I think because it’s imprinted on my brain, you asked me
what was my, what’s my job, I’ve got lots of different jobs but I
still say I’m a farmer, I think I’ll always be a farmer, but like
many, many others now, farming isn’t my main source of income and
maybe,
had I been in a different position I would have been forced at the foot
and
mouth point to diversify, I’d already been through the diversification
thing over many years, umm, for whatever reason, some successful, some
not
successful
3.415.
AW: Tell me about
some of the things that you’ve diversified into
3.416.
CH: Umm, well at
the moment, I have err a nursing home, umm for, retired, well not
retired
people but old people, full nursing, which I built personally fifteen
years
ago, so that would be one of my main income steams now, my wife, now
works
there full time as administrator
3.417.
AW: That’s
close to here is it?
3.418.
CH: Yeah
that’s five miles up the road, and umm, we’d have like err forty
three staff there, forty residents, and initially, when I first built
it, I
thought that I couldn’t run it, or attempt to run it, because I
didn’t understand nursing, but of course there’s two fundamentals
which come into play there, which is man management and if you farm you
can man
manage, and occupancy, and if you get those two things right, the rest
will
fall into place, it’s as simple as that, so over the years have had
many
so called professional managers, etc, etc, whenever there was a severe
problem
it always came back to me and usually it was man management so we,
we’ve
sort of taken it back in hand over the years, so I mean interestingly
enough,
the farming experience of employing people, all that sort of thing, put
us in
good stead for that and maybe I did that many years before this foot
and mouth
thing happened, whereas lots of different guys would be doing different
ventures now, but they will be well positioned to make them work
because the
background knowledge they’ve had and background experiences they’ve
had, umm, on top of that I do import, exports with timber products now,
umm
through contacts that I made through the livestock again, umm, we sell,
umm
barrels for tubs for flower planting, we sell the railway sleepers, we
sell oak
beams, reclaimed oak beams, decking, to name but a few, umm, we build,
we’re always, right from the very beginning, when we first started we
had
sort of barns in the farm, so I always do a bit of building, I usually
got a
barn conversion or something on the go, again, from my experience with
farming,
converting buildings, building your own farm buildings, it’s all
exactly
the same, umm, and umm, that’s to name but a few of the things
3.419.
AW: In terms of
your time, how much of your time do you think each of those would take
up
roughly
3.420.
CH: Well, the
nursing home, as I explained, my wife runs that, so she would spend
most of her
time there
3.421.
AW: Did you
decide to go into that because of your, umm, your wife’s err experience
3.422.
CH: No, not at
all, not at all, umm, she only came into it, very recently, she was
working for
an agricultural, she was working full time for an agricultural estate
agent at
Stratford, and my original administrator at the nursing home retired,
and I
said to her you’re travelling like fifty miles a day, you’re doing
effectively the same job, umm, because administration again is
administration,
it doesn’t matter whether in a nursing home or an estate agents, or an
agricultural estate agents, so she said, yeah, I’ll give it a go and of
course, it’s been, luckily she’s really enjoyed the team work and
doing the job, so it’s lucky
3.423.
AW: That’s
3.424.
CH: But no, no,
the decision to go into that was nothing at all
3.425.
AW: So that was
yours, it’s quite, it’s quite a different, well, you’ve said
some of there similarities between that and farming, but it’s, it’s
a different sector
3.426.
CH: Oh, totally
alien, I mean interesting story how we got into it in the first
instance, err,
originally the house that we converted was on an estate that we bought,
and the
reason that we bought the estate was, we were doing a lot of livestock
trading
and we wanted somewhere close to the motorway where we could hold a lot
of
livestock, this place happened to have a very big manor house on it,
once
we’d bought it, we looked at the manor house and what we could do with
it, and we looked at school, hotel, timeshare, flats, whatever, but of
course
friend of a friend had got a nursing home, so we had them round to
dinner and
she said, oh well that’ll be a double room and this will be a single
room
and I thought, well, I can convert that, and this is another
interesting point,
of course I put a planning application in, for change of use of manor
house to
a nursing home, in what was my trading company then, which was called
Farm
Direct Limited, and the headlines of the local press, it was refused,
and the
headlines of the local press was, Councillors had visions of old people
being
gored by bullocks, okay, so I put the application again, in the next
month in
the name of Tender, Loving, Care Homes Limited, and it went through
3.427.
AW: Was that
actually the name that you used?
3.428.
CH: Well, more or
less, I put it in the name of Frances Thorn Care Homes Limited, but,
same
principle
3.429.
AW: So
3.430.
CH: But
effectively, the point I’m making is, it’s the same people behind
it, but it was political, you know, I was naive, putting the
application in,
and not thinking how other people would perceive it, which, I think has
come
through in a lot of our previous, you know, previous debate, that it’s
how you present it, how farmer’s present what they’re selling is
very important
3.431.
AW: Would you
describe yourself as an entrepreneur?
3.432.
CH: I’d
describe myself as a farmer, I had difficulty in explaining that to you
to
start with, but umm, I’ve done a lot of different things and I always
go
back to it, you know
3.433.
AW: In terms of
your time, I was trying to work out a rough division of umm, your
various
businesses
3.434.
CH: I would say I
spend probably fifty percent of my time related to farming things
3.435.
AW: And the other
doing the import export, the nursing, the
3.436.
CH: Yeah
3.437.
AW: Do you use,
umm, integrated farm management here?
3.438.
CH: Yeah
3.439.
AW: It’s a
bit of a jargon word
3.440.
CH: I
wouldn’t say integrated farm management, we use a consultant who comes
in
once a year to, do the IACS forms and that sort of thing, we use Farm
Plan on
all our computer packages, interestingly enough including the nursing
home,
umm, which obviously we wouldn’t use if we weren’t in farming, but
that’s what we’re use-to, so we use Farm Plan there as well,
don’t know does that answer your question
3.441.
AW: Well, yeah I
guess so, I mean different people have different ideas of what
Integrated Farm
Management is, for some people it’s, err, less us of inputs, or just
using them when needed, or, you know, varies from individual to
individual what
3.442.
CH: Well in that
case, no, there wouldn’t be anything structured, but, I, normal
Commerce’s that would come into play, I think, you know, you,
you’d, you won’t buy something, or use something if you felt you
could buy something at better value
3.443.
AW: Do you think
there’s too much bureaucracy in farming these days?
3.444.
CH: Far too much,
it’s a nightmare as far as I’m concerned, biggest downside of it, I
mean, I liked farming because, you could get on and do your own thing,
historically,
but that day’s gone now, it’s historical
3.445.
AW: What does
that bureaucracy mean to you, in terms of day to day work?
3.446.
CH: Filling in
forms, ear tagging, um, people coming and checking-up on what you’re
doing all the time, umm, as I said to you, I think umm, I’d go into the
Vet to buy a bottle of Terramycin to inject a sheep, prime example, I
mean,
I’ve seen this coming, over the last fifteen years, because I saw the,
I
went through the same thing, I haven’t told you, but told you I was in
the meat trade, I actually had my own abattoir, and, from being
unregulated we
became regulated to death, and that wasn’t meant to be a pun, but we
were
regulated and so many of my colleagues were put out of business, we
didn’t go out of business for that reason but when I started there were
two thousand abattoirs in the UK, when I stopped I think it was down to
six
hundred, or five hundred, I think now, there’s about three hundred, and
I
could see
3.447.
AW: When did you
start that, in the abattoir business
3.448.
CH: Err, I
can’t remember the exact dates, but it would be something like
3.449.
AW: When you were
eighteen?
3.450.
CH: No, I’d
be twenty, twenty five or six, and I used to supply pigs to the guy
that owned
the abattoir, or he owned the lease to the abattoir, and he had been,
umm, hit
by the first wave of EEC rules and regulations, and he had to spend, in
those
days it was twenty thousand pounds to upgrade the abattoir and he
didn’t want to do it, and he said to me, would I like a share in the
abattoir, and I said, yeah I’ll have a share in the abattoir, I
didn’t know anything about it, but I thought it, naturally, again,
leads
on from the farming I was doing, I was selling pigs to him anyway, umm,
so
suddenly I was in there, and umm, as I say, from a bureaucratic point
of view,
it started with virtually no control to having five, you’d end having
more meat inspectors and more MLC people and more Ministry people than
you’ve got employees of your own, and it’s a nonsense, but I can
see the same thing is going to happen with farming, I believe that, in
the
future farmers won’t be allowed to inject their own animals,
they’re be a ministry vet, who’ll control a group of large farms,
and he will be responsible for what goes on, on those farms, and
it’s almost happened, I’ve been prophesising this for ten years and
it’s almost happened now, not that the Ministry Vet himself wants to do
it, but the politicians think it’s politically correct, but again, they
have realised that trying to control, E.Coli and Salmonella and all
these
things through big abattoirs, is a lot, lot harder than it was when
they had
the little local abattoirs, because you get one diseased animal, that’s
in a through-put of ten thousand a week, and you’re infected half the
Country, and maybe this is half the problem with BSE, I don’t know
3.451.
AW: I think one
of the recommendations of the Food and Farming Commission is, is that
farmers
should be licensed
3.452.
CH: Umm
3.453.
AW: What do you
think about that?
3.454.
CH: I thing
it’s umm, an invasion of privacy and I find it totally offensive
3.455.
AW: Have you had,
umm, one of the things we’re interested in is how, how people have
learned about the recommendations in that report, is that, have you
come to
know of it through, err, the farm media, like Farm, Farmers Weekly, or
3.456.
CH: Yeah, I think
umm, through the farming press, we covered that before, I mean I would
most
through the farming press now, because I don’t socialise that much
with,
fellow farmers or fellow meat traders, but you see, if Government
becomes
involved in all these things, it will end in disaster, because it never
works,
it never has worked, it never will work, it should be controlled by the
market
place and the market place is what controls it properly, no Government
body can
do it.
3.457.
AW: I think
you’re said already that farmers, I think you said that, subsidies are
important to farmers, and that err, you’d all be in favour, in, in
getting ride of them.
3.458.
CH: I’ve
said that farmers farm subsidy, me included
3.459.
[fax rings]
3.460.
CH: I’ll
have to switch it off a minute
3.461.
CH: Farmers will
farm for subsidies if the subsidies are there to be taken, I don’t
personally agree with production subsidies at all, and I think they
distort the
market, I think given twelve months with no subsidies at all, if we’re
going to have subsidies at all, I agree with environmental subsidies,
as I said
before, I think if a man wants to earn a living hedge laying then pay
him a
good living, you know, let him earn a hundred pound a day, which,
what’s
that today, you know, twenty five thousand a year, it’s the average
wage,
don’t offer him, two hundred pounds a week for doing a job which is
highly skilled and bloody hard work, you know, so I think I’ve already
made that point, umm, I’ve lost my track there a little bit
3.462.
AW: Okay, let me
ask you this question, who do you think has the most control over
farming
today?
3.463.
AW: It could be
any one of these, land owners, politicians, EU, Big companies,
supermarkets
3.464.
CH: Big companies
3.465.
AW: It could be
none of those
3.466.
CH: Big
companies, big companies, because, again going back to what I’ve said
before, I said what an opportunity the Government had, to turn this
Country
organic, and control everything at a stroke, but they won’t do it
because
they frightened of the oil companies that control sprays and
fertilisers,
simple as that, but the control is, again, on the purchasing with the
supermarkets, so it’s definitely big companies
3.467.
AW: So
that’s both in terms of, the inputs that farmers buy like
3.468.
CH: Yup
3.469.
AW: Seeds and
fertiliser, etc and also the markets that they sell into?
3.470.
CH: Absolutely,
and your colleague, sorry again, the lady you met earlier, is a prime
example
of somebody circumvented that
3.471.
AW: This would be
Jane Bowler
3.472.
CH: Yeah
3.473.
AW: who sells
3.474.
CH: Yeah
3.475.
AW: her, her, her
pigs at family butchers
3.476.
CH: Yeah, and all
credit to her, but she’ll only be able to do that, in the niche market
that she’s in, which she thoroughly enjoys doing, as her way of life,
which is highly recommended, you know, brilliant, but you couldn’t do
it,
on a larger scale to compete on a larger scale with these supermarkets,
they,
they’d probably take all her produce at the moment if she’d give it
to them I guess, just to get her name in, you know
3.477.
AW: Have you had
any contact with the supermarkets, farming here?
3.478.
CH: Umm, when we
had foot and mouth, and they were trying to, they were, they stopped
buying
English and started importing all the foreign meat, I got on to
Tesco’s,
because I was really annoyed about it, because I thought, particularly
at that
time be, using English Meat, and umm, promoting it as being English,
and umm,
yes I got onto Tesco’s, but they declined to comment and declined to
listen to me, effectively, and when we were a smaller, when we had the
abattoir, which was a smaller abattoir, um, we tried to deal with the
supermarkets, umm, with the exception of Waitrose, who we dealt with
indirectly
for a while, because they would source from a lot of little people,
they wouldn’t
deal with the small person because they couldn’t control us, it’s
nothing to do with hygiene or anything like that, they couldn’t control
the price and we could create competition, and we could create a
market, so
they, it was nothing to do with hygiene, it’s purely on commercial
grounds, don’t care what anybody says
3.479.
AW: So, the
supermarkets are setting the prices
3.480.
CH: Oh
definitely, no question about it, they’ve shot themselves in the foot
already, because they can only screw it down to such a low level and
once they
put people out of business, which has happened, they then panic and
have to
import and that’s already started to tip a little bit so politically, I
think, I think they’ve been amazed at the English general public,
because
the large percentage of the English general public are actually very
pro and
very loyal to British produce, given that option
3.481.
AW: In terms of
your farm here and what you produce you produce here, err, are, are
there ways
in which supermarkets umm, have influence, or?
3.482.
CH: I don’t
think they have much influence now, but they have had immense
influence, umm,
because of the changes that have happened, hum
3.483.
[Pause while door is
closed]
3.484.
CH: You know,
those changes have already taken place
3.485.
AW: And is that
also, you mentioned the big companies in terms of inputs
3.486.
[Interruption by someone
opening and closing door]
3.487.
AW: In what way,
in what sense do they have, have control of
3.488.
CH: Umm,
we’ll I’ll go back specifically to my theory on the Government
turning this country organic, and I think they’ve had a marvellous
opportunity, which would have been publicly, the public would have
loved it,
farmers would have liked it, it could have been conservation friendly,
what
other reason for not doing it, apart from, the power of the
multinational
companies that supplies the inputs, which we would not have used
3.489.
AW: So you think
big companies have a lot of influence in Government and on agriculture
3.490.
CH: Ooh, without
question, big company, big companies own Government, politicians are
owned,
they’re puppets, you get one or two, you get one or two politicians
which
won’t align, align themselves particularly to anybody, who are very
genuine, the bulk of politicians, to be successful are owned puppets, I
think
everybody accepts that, I don’t thing that’s a personal view, I
think
3.491.
AW: But that is
your personal view?
3.492.
CH: It is a
personal view, but I think everybody does accept that, almost to a
degree, I
mean you look at the politicians today, you look at the people that,
that put
the money into the Labour party, I mean I’m not a political person at
all, but you look at the money that went into the Labour Party, those
guys that
put in a hundred grand here, a hundred grand there, they’ve, they would
appear to have come out with, good contracts, whether it be, the, I
think
it’s the Mittal bothers got the steel place didn’t they, and it
happens every week
3.493.
AW: You said
about going organic, have you every considered umm going organic on
this farm
3.494.
CH: Umm
3.495.
AW: for anything,
any products at all
3.496.
CH: Not, not
specifically, and the reason I would say I haven’t is because,
we’ve had so many outlying farms and sheep and cattle about at
different
places that it wouldn’t have worked for the system I was running, umm,
yeah, I think that’s the answer to that
3.497.
AW: Are there any
other, err, assurance schemes that, you umm, take part in?
3.498.
CH: We’re
Farm Assured, we’re FABL, umm, which I don’t agree with, but the
supermarkets demand it and if you’re not FABL then they won’t buy
your livestock, so you have to do it, but what does it achieve, ninety
percent
of farmers are FABL, the whole thing is a con anyway, you pay them two
hundred
pound a year r whatever, and you get a visit once a year, they don’t
know
how you’re treating animals, so it’s another drain on the farmer
just to have this FABL Farm Assured thing stamped on a piece of paper,
I
don’t think it means anything
3.499.
AW: You say the
supermarkets err require it
3.500.
CH: Umm
3.501.
AW: How, how do
they, how do you get to know that they require it and
3.502.
CH: Because
they’ve got control of the abattoirs now and they’ve told the
abattoirs that they’re not to buy any livestock unless its farm assured
3.503.
AW: So that the
abattoirs require that you supply
3.504.
CH: Yeah
3.505.
AW: FABL
3.506.
CH: Or the
abattoirs, when there were livestock markets, the abattoirs were not
allowed to
bid for an animal that wasn’t Farm Assured
3.507.
AW: Are there
other, other, umm, requirements that supermarkets have put on livestock
etc,
that has influenced you, here on the farm
3.508.
CH: Absolutely,
because, let me give you an example, a particular supermarket may
have a
specification for a classification of bullock, it might state that,
that
bullock has to be between two hundred and forty kilos, dead weight, and
three
hundred and twenty kilos, dead weight, for example, and it has to be an
R4L or
an R3 classification, now you tell me what the difference is between a
three
hundred and forty kilo bullock at R4L, and a three hundred and forty
and half
bullock at R4L, now I’m in the meat trade, I could trim that three
hundred and forty and half bullock, down to three hundred and thirty
five
kilos, but the supermarket will probably pay you thirty quid less for
that half
a kilo extra, and that’s a prime example
3.509.
AW: How do you
know about that? Is that because of your knowledge of the meat trade
3.510.
CH: Yeah, yeah,
but any farmer will know now that they give you a specification, I mean
that
was your direct question, have they altered the specification, I’ve
already covered that in the breeding, which I said was the biggest one,
but the
specification in the weight, the classification, it doesn’t make that
beast, that carcass any better, the meat isn’t going to be any
different,
that depends on the beading and the feeding, but it’s another way in
which they can target, the farmer and put less back into their pocket
3.511.
AW: So the feed
that you feed to cattle has been influenced by the supermarkets?
3.512.
CH: I
wouldn’t say the feed
3.513.
AW: Has other
aspects of husbandry maybe?
3.514.
CH: Umm, yes,
beading wise, because they have become the main, err, purchaser, then
breeding
wise has gone to the continental breeding etc, etc and now I did
mention
earlier the Herefords and the Aberdeen Angus has come back into fashion
so they
are paying, again Waitrose started it, with their Aberdeen Angus
scheme, um,
which has been very successful and is thankfully, that’s turning full
circle now, I think it’s a good thing
3.515.
AW: I also spoke
with one farmer, umm, she dealt directly actually with the supermarket,
umm
with Marks and Spencers, and they offered her a slight premium and they
had a
scheme where they came and, presumably they were able to set, umm,
certainly
husbandry standards, etc, have some influence on the cattle, umm, but
there was
a direct link between the supermarket and her, I mean she was, was a
small
producer
3.516.
CH: Yeah
3.517.
AW: Not organic,
but in Oxfordshire, is there any scheme like that your part of?
3.518.
CH: No, but I
thought of another very important, very important, point and a very
important,
umm reason why, the farming industry in opinion has gone the way it has
and not
only farming but butchers, bakers, the high street, little high street
family
shops, it’s nothing to do about, the price or the quality or the
hygiene
of what they produced, it’s because, people’s habits have changed,
and I’m equally as bad, I mean we still go to our local butcher to get
our Sunday joint, but I shop in Tesco’s, I go round and shop in
Tesco’s, because of the pure convenience, free car parking, you not
going
to have to park on double yellow lines, you pick up your trolley, you
get your
points and you don’t get wet, now, the, if the planning people, or the
powers that be, the Government, the planners, had allowed, supermarkets
to have
been like a farmers market, or like the high streets used to be, so
that the
old streets names, now in fact Morrison’s are trying to achieve this
now,
the supermarkets have come round to it, but they’re doing it under
their
own umbrella, so that you’ve got everybody with the same checkouts but
you’re got fifteen different shops under that covered area, but it
doesn’t want to be in the centre of Oxford, where you can’t get to
it, it needs to be out of town shopping, those people would stall be in
existence and then you would have competition and you’d have a market
place, etc, so the supermarkets, again, have been hand fed this,
because the
out of town shopping
3.519.
AW: Okay,
we’re almost done actually, umm, I’m going, umm, have, has the size
of your farm increased at all when you’ve been farming?
3.520.
CH: It did, umm,
initially it did, when, I, I was, I think we been, covered this before,
when we
first went into arable, sort of on a large scale, we were taking in,
umm, other
farms, as they became available, and umm, as I say that’s still
happening, i.e. like my neighbour that’s now five thousand acres will
probably end up as ten thousand acres, and he may well take what I farm
now, he
may well take the whole lot, well he will probably take the whole lot
in the
area, I think it’s the way it will go
3.521.
AW: What do you
think will happen to this farm when you retire?
3.522.
CH: Be built on,
be developed
3.523.
AW: Why do you
say that?
3.524.
CH: Because
we’re only, well that’s pending a war or disaster with the
population, err, because we’re just off junction nine of the M40, err,
Bicester is, one of the growth towns in Oxfordshire, umm, there’s
already
pressures on this area to develop, we’ve got Bicester Sports
Association
next door with the sports field and playing field, we’re got the golf
course next door to that, umm, Bicester’s grown, the other way towards
Buckingham by three miles in my life time, so the natural progression
is you
would think, that it comes back to the motorway, and I’m sure that will
happen
3.525.
AW: So
you’re not confident that, umm, I mean in your own eyes, you’ve
probably not old enough that your children will take on a farm from you
3.526.
CH: No, I very, I
highly, I would very much doubt it, which is why, as I said before
where
actively looking to buy a farm in France, so that if they want to do
that, they
can
3.527.
AW: Sorry, let me
just ask you that again, so you, when you say farming in France, are
you now considering
farming and moving to France, or
3.528.
CH: Well, I
wouldn’t move to France myself, I may possibly, if we found a nice
place
I might think I’d retire there, umm, we have, have holidays in France
already, err, but for the price of a sort of, reasonably small house
round
here, one can buy, a hundred and fifty hectares, not of prime arable
land but a
hundred and fifty acre grass farm, a hundred and fifty hectare grass
farm and
it will be self financing and I think, your asking me the question
would my son
farm here, I said no, but if he wants to farm then I believe he’ll farm
there
3.529.
AW: Do you thing
the farm will be amalgamated into a neighbouring farm?
3.530.
CH: No I think it
will be built on, but if not I think if will be amalgamated
3.531.
AW: What do you
thing the public image is of farming?
3.532.
CH: I think the
public’s image is a lot, lot better, than the farming industry itself
probably believes, um, I don’t think have got that romantic image of
people, the old farmer stood out in his field with his animals, they’re
much more realistic than that today, umm, I thing they are incredibly
loyal to
the British farmer and to the British produce, if their presented with
the
right commodity, and, again go back to your friend, your person you
interviewed
before, she’s doing the job properly, all be it, maybe, in a small way
3.533.
AW: Do you mean
the pig farmer?
3.534.
CH: Yes, yeah
3.535.
AW: Jane Bowler
3.536.
CH: Yeah, but she’s
doing it in a proper way, your bigger farmer may not be able to do
that,
because he hasn’t got the outlets, I think to a degree, we’ve been
knocking the supermarkets but they’ve realised that umm, they, that
market
is there and for example, err, Cornwall and Devon, I think it’s
Sainsbury’s, err, err, I think it’s Sainsbury’s down there,
umm, they’re doing a Dorset sheep scheme, where, traditionally
Dorset’s lamb early, so you get the first lot of spring lamb, so the,
the
supermarkets in Devon and Cornwall will be stocking Dorset sheep or
Dorset lamb
from, umm, probably about end of February, whereas Asda’s and that
haven’t gone onto spring lamb, yet, in this area, or nationwide,
Asda’s haven’t gone on spring lamb yet, I think they may have done
this week, but you see the general public therefore, can’t buy spring
lamb, if you’re shopping in Asda you don’t get it, you get last
years hog, you know what I mean by hog, last year’s teg, so
traditionally
in a local butcher he would start buying spring lamb at Easter and,
although
the house wife wouldn’t realise, she’d think cor, this lamb is
beautiful, might be a little bit more expensive, but that’s the
difference
3.537.
AW: Last
question, what advice would you give to someone who was starting in
farming
today?
3.538.
CH: Go to France,
3.539.
AW: Why’s
that, why do you say that?
3.540.
CH: The
Government want you, they will give you large grants, a lot of advice
and a lot
of support to get you started, if you’re a young farmer, you said young
person, umm, you would set up, you would set up again, over there with
a
hundred hectare farm for less than the price of a decent house, in, in
this
area
3.541.
AW: And
that’s
3.542.
CH: I think, I
think the future of anywhere in the EEC they’re always going to protect
you there because I believe twenty seven percent of the voting
population is
agricultural related, and in this country it’s two percent, so
you’re never going to get the political power
3.543.
AW: Do you say
that because farming in France is much like it use to be when you
started?
3.544.
CH: Yeah, I think
to a degree they’re still the romance in it, but you can still earn a
living, you can earn a living there, from that two, three hundred
acres, a
hundred and fifty hectares, you will earn a living from that, where as
over
here, I don’t believe you can, not unless you find the niche markets
and
really, you then not a farmer, you’re a bacon seller or an organic meat
seller or whatever that might be, it’s not farming, in its own right,
which I think was your question.
3.545.
AW: So you
don’t thing the Government in Britain is supporting farmers? Or do you
think they are?
3.546.
CH: I
don’t, I don’t thing they are, I don’t think they know what
to do, and I don’t thing farmers can blame the Labour Government for
not
supporting them because, historically, how many farming votes would
they get?
3.547.
AW: Or previous
Governments?
3.548.
CH: Previous
Governments have made various errors of judgement, I think, whether
that be
joining the EEC or whatever, err, umm, we’re such a small voting, I
come
back to that, we’re such a small voting that at the end of the day, we
don’t have the political clout, and I don’t thing we ever will have
in this country, and it’s all very well saying we’re in the EEC
but, the EEC has linked the English farming, or British farming is the
laughing
stock of the EEC, doesn’t matter weather it’s Ireland, Holland,
Belgium, France, Germany, they can’t believe that we’re,
we’re allow all their foods to come in, our Government, our Government
doesn’t really care, and that’s the difference
3.549.
AW: That’s
all my questions
3.550.
CH: That’s
about me done too then
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