foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time

Subject: foot and mouth
From: kab
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 12:03 PM

Can anyone remember what the effects were if any of the last foot and mouth outbreak on rural location folk festivals?

Subject: RE: foot and mouth
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 12:18 PM

Travel in and between rural areas was discouraged. The main outbreak was early in the year so there weren't that many festivals happening. Those in the worst affected areas were advised to not go ahead. Whether they did or not I can't remember.

LTS

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 12:41 PM

News reports on the latest case say that the previous outbreak was in 2001, but doesn't give a season for when it hit.

There's probably lots more comment available, but the report I saw is at Foot-and-mouth hits U.K..

(The headline on the front page link to it was "UK Minister rushes home due to foot-in-mouth." I thought it was an article about politics, and almost skipped it.)

John

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 12:52 PM

It was January - May. I was in Devon and Dorset at the time, travelling down to the Middle Bar Reunion and the induction of a friend as Canon Precentor in Exeter Cathedral, which was February, 2001. I was prevented from visiting my aunt and uncle whilst there as they live on a dairy farm and were under strictest quarantine.

LTS

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 12:56 PM

Timeline...

If you play around the site a little, it gives oddly conflicting dates - the post mortem appears to be dated 19th October 2000, but that was before the initial cases were found in Jan/Feb 2001...

LTS

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: BB
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 01:04 PM

We were booked at Crawfordjohn Spring Thing in Lanarkshire that year. It was cancelled due to F&M. We had other things booked around it, so we still went up to Scotland. Almost wished we hadn't. Things were bad in Devon, but it just accentuated how bad it was all over, particularly seeing the pyres in Cumbria on the way up. I hope that's something we won't see again, along with the contiguous culling. They're talking about vaccination this time, thank goodness!

Barbara

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Emma B
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 01:19 PM

The National Folk Festival held on the Sutton Bonnington campus of Nottingham University agricultural College was the first casualty of the last Foot and Mouth outbreak in England I think.

Many festivals are held in rural locations but the damage done to the communities of the area cannot be underestimated.

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: BB
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 01:25 PM

Absolutely, Emma! I'm not sure how many farmers will survive a bad one this time. It just seems to be one thing after another for them over the last ten/fifteen years. And not just the stock farmers either. The smell of rotting crops as we drove up through Humberside/East Yorkshire a couple of weeks ago brought that home to us.

Barbara

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last ti
From: Folkiedave
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 01:30 PM

Beverley was cancelled as I remember - also Stainsby.

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Cats
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 02:43 PM

We cancelled the Fox and Hounds Weekend of Singing which is on Dartmoor. The lane which goes to the back of the pub was cordoned off with police cars and when Jon went up a couple of weeks before to see Frank who owns the it, the only peple in the bar were him and 2 police officers. 'Fox' has sheep in both the fields next to the pubs campsite. Nevertheless we survived which is more than can be said for many of the farmers livelihoods around here. Living between 2 farms and sharing my drive with one of them, I watched the cows come down my lane for milking this afternoon and thought there but by the grace of the gods ....

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 04:28 PM

We are due to go to Holland by car last week of August. Can anybody remember if there were any restrictions travelling through the UK and coming through France?

Probably not, but just wondered

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Cats
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:17 PM

Last time it was no meat or dairy products in your luggage and crossing through airports and harbours there were massive disinfectant mats and some places sprayed the underside of cars & lorries. Any roads that are within the exclusion zone will be cordoned off and patrolled. Just be sensible and lets not get into mass hysteria like last time. [Sorry ~ not implying that you were]

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 05:20 PM

I am more interested in being able to go on holiday :-)

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 06:16 PM

Middlewich was cancelled early on in the year, and I was due to play there with the Boat Band. In fact, by the time the festival date arrived(June) there were no particular restrictions in force affectiung Middlewich one way or the other, so we held an informal festival anyway in the pubs round town. And very good it was too.

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 02:15 AM

It probably depends where you are travelling from - if you are coming from an infected area, you'll be steered through the cordon via disinfecting baths and asked to remove and disinfect your footwear. Taking raw meat and dairy products out of the country will also be refused.

Main roads were perfectly passable - Manitas and I travelled from London to Whitby in March 2001 (the height of the panic) and only saw a disinfecting bath when we got to the Yorkshire Moors. In Devon and Dorset the disinfecting mats were a bit more frequent and many more roads were restricted - but they rely on the farming industry a bit more than the M1 or London. Just don't be taking silly detours or thinking 'it won't affect me'. That sort of behaviour got it spread all across the country last time.

LTS

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Rasener
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 03:41 AM

market rasen lincolnshire to the tunnel

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: MG John
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 03:56 AM

All Ferries to S.Ireland were using disinfectant sprays on vehicles trailers and tyres. Meat and dairy products were prohibited, and all passengers and drivers were asked if they had come from, or been on a farm recently.
Some family friends who had a farm near to Whitby (U.K.) lost all their pedigree sheep which had been bred and built-up for generations.Part of their family sold up and moved to nr. York to run a caravan site which is close to the river Ouse. Lets hope that this outbreak is contained this time!
John.

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: GUEST,Sue Allan
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 03:57 AM

Foot and mouth last time around lasted February to October here in Cumbria. It was devastating to our rural communities and the emotional after-effects, and economic effects, are still there in farming families.

My heart leapt into my mouth when I heard the news of another outbreak, and I sincerely hope lessons have been learned from last time - no more pyres belching smoke and the disgusting smell of burning cattle, or heaps of dead sheep lying just inside field gates waiting to be taken off to the mass burial grounds at Great Orton - a village which has barely recovered. Then followed months of empty silent fields throughout the countryside...

There was mass closure of the countryside in 2001, and walks in the Lake District either closed, or people severely discouraged from walking. There was a degree of unnecessary panic and people were perhaps over-cautious. On the other hand, our Cumbrian native Herdwick sheep on the open fells were decimated by the culling, and the farmers appreciated the concern and consideration from the general populace.

I should not have thought FMD ought to affect folk festivals, but if it spreads then people will again no doubt want to be very cautious -and folk festivals will be the least of everyone's worries.

Subject: RE: foot and mouth - effect on rural fests last time
From: Cats
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 05:13 AM

Sue Allen ~ you are so right. In 2001 I was driving up to Launceston here in Cornwall, went round a corner and there was a pyre in the field on my right. I just cried. The smell of roasting meat with a backtaste of horn, bone and hair, the distinct smell of disinfectant across the countryside, the lorries piled high with bales of hay for the pyres and the army patrolling the minor roads stopping you from going through never really leave you. The other thing that happened was that it hit the tourist industry badly in that, although there was only one outbreak in Cornwall on the Devon border, many people stopped coming down for holidays as they had to drive through Devon and had a strange idea that they could catch it by driving through an infected county. As you said, let's hope this one is just that ~ one. Thoughts are with all farmers at this time.