Foot and mouth: special report

Farmers the length and breadth of Shropshire, Mid Wales and their borders will today be thinking "Please God no, not again".

The spectre of another foot and mouth epidemic looms just six years after the disease caused chaos and heartache across Britain.

The memory of 2001 is all too fresh and painful for many country folk in our area.

The haunting images are flickering to mind today­ the mountains of burning cattle carcasses, the newborn lambs drowning in waterlogged fields from which their owners were not allowed to move them, the utter despair of farmers literally seeing their life's work going up in smoke.

We pray that yesterday's outbreak of the disease in Surrey remains an isolated case, because what we saw in Shropshire and Powys in 2001 wasn't just a cruel and virulent disease striking randomly, bringing with it the slaughter of tens of thousands of animals, diseased and healthy.

It was the total breakdown of country life. The movement of animals was outlawed ­and the movement of people discouraged.

Livestock markets closed down, agricultural shows were scrapped, farming-related businesses suffered and tourism collapsed.

Hundreds of miles of footpaths and bridleways became 'no go' areas as simple, pleasant rural pursuits were suddenly 'outlawed'.

Famed beauty spots like the Long Mynd and Wrekin became off limits and visitor attractions like Weston Park stayed closed after their winter break.

My son's under nines football league in Mid Wales was abandoned in mid-season as any kind of travel around Powys, however innocent, engendered the terror of spreading the disease.

Many farmers lead lonely working lives as it is, grafting 14 or 15 hours a day by themselves. Foot and mouth leaves them even more isolated. And their daily lives become not so much farm management as crisis management.

In the grip of a plague like 2001 it's not just foot and mouth that spreads ­it's also the fear of foot and mouth.

We can't face it again, so soon after the last time. Some farmers are still trying to rebuild their shattered lives. Another epidemic would drive many to the edge again and a few even over it.

Shropshire's Rural Stress Network will be on standby again at its base at Harper Adams University College, near Newport.

And all this comes on top of the worst summer of rainfall on record weather that has left farmland submerged, soaked and soggy and seen off country shows like Burwarton and Guilsfield.

Confirmed One figure much in the news in 2001 was the then UK Chief Veterinary Officer Jim Scudamore, who seemed to be on television and quoted in the newspapers daily.

His successor is Debby Reynolds, who confirmed yesterday's outbreak near Guildford. Let us hope she doesn't rise to the same prominence as Scudamore over the coming weeks.

The 2001 outbreak saw a total of 3.75 million animals slaughtered across the country.

Waen Farm at Felindre, between Newtown and Knighton, was the first to be hit in our area. Farmer David Thomas spotted that one of his sheep was lame and called in officials. He had 700 sheep and cattle slaughtered and gave up farming after 40 years.

The Felindre outbreak was quickly followed by others in Mid Wales and neighbouring Shropshire.

The outbreak crippled the rural economy of Powys, the worst-hit county in Wales with 78 confirmed cases out of 118. A total of 304,847 sheep were culled as a result of the 10-month crisis, along with 35,184 cattle, 5,941 pigs and 121 goats.

At one point rules on the movement of animals had to be relaxed for welfare reasons. Many were, after several weeks of confinement, in a terrible state, living in overcrowded sheds with little to eat, or kept on muddy fields after a particularly wet spring.

The outbreak sprang up in all parts of Shropshire. No-one living at or near places that witnessed mass culls, such as Lawley Farm in Worfield, near Bridgnorth; Wheatley House, near Minsterley; Swancote, near Bridgnorth; Lawns Farm in Pulverbatch, near Shrewsbury, and Pentregaer Farm, at Croesbach, near Oswestry, is likely to forget the spring of 2001.

Let us hope with all our hearts it doesn't come to that again. After the crisis, of course, there was the rebuilding process.

Some farmers received hundreds of thousands of pounds in Government compensation ­and a few might whisper that they were actually better off afterwards than they were before.

Others had to battle for months for their money. There were, to be sure, winners and losers. But I cannot forget John Bayliss and Glyn Lewis.

John, a 56 year-old farmer from Kerry, near Newtown, and Glyn, aged 59, from Llanfyllin, near Oswestry, took their lives, weighed down by anxiety and driven to the depths of despair by foot and mouth.

The ultimate tragedy behind those three dreaded words.

Special report on the crisis by Neil Thomas