FEATURE
2001 - the year of the epidemic When West Devon was caught in the eye of the storm... While our lives are being turned upside down thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, exactly 20 years ago another virus was wreaking havoc in many countryside communities in the UK and particularly so in West Devon. Many people say they remember clearly what they were doing when hearing of a world-wide incident - I read about the death of Elvis Presley while doing my paper round one sunny summer morning. In the same way, I remember talking to our next door neighbour, retired farmer Ginger White, in the bar of the Blacksmith’s Arms at Lamerton, the weekend that foot and mouth disease was discovered in Devon. The dread he felt was plain to see.
Pictures by Mary Heard
Sue Wonnacott, whose family farm is just outside South Zeal, remembered clearly when the epidemic began in the county. ‘It was my 40th birthday on the 26th February and we’d had a party - when we were leaving at the end, somebody said they’d been called to say they’d discovered foot and mouth in Devon,’ said Sue. She said she and her husband were ‘very lucky’ and weren’t affected directly by the epidemic, although animal movement restrictions meant they couldn’t transport their stock. They also didn’t lose irreplaceable pedigree herds like many local farmers.
I was working at the Tavistock Times then, the fax machine on the corner of my desk. In the months that followed, curled paper messages from DEFRA spewed out endlessly, recording the relentless march of foot and mouth across the countryside. Police kept watch by taped-off farm gates, fields steadily emptied, infected stock destroyed and even sadder, healthy animals killed, just for being ‘contiguous’ or next to a farm where the virus had been found. A total of 173 cases were confirmed in the county - some 390,000 animals slaughtered and burned on huge pyres. The effects of the epidemic were felt throughout the area, not just within the farming community. Public footpaths and bridleways were closed, stepping foot on farmland, common land and Dartmoor was prohibited, while disinfectant-soaked straw was laid down across carpark entrances in an effort to halt the spread of the deadly disease. Blowing in the wind, the odour of the pyres.
See our community website www.dartmoorlinks.co.uk
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