Residents’ fury

Local residents, organisations and councillors have been up in arms, since Railtrack took its power saws to trees along the railway cutting leading to Totley Tunnel. Mature trees and dense shrubbery on the embankment was felled without any apparent regard to the different species growing or the impact on wildlife and the environment in general.

No attempt was made to communicate with people or local organisations in advance, so that the resultant devastation came as a shock to everyone. Residents tried to stop the work in progress to no avail, as the company justified its actions on the grounds of problems caused by leaves on the line.

Such was local fury that a public meeting was called by local councillors, attended by some 180 people and a Totley Railway Action Group set up.

Now to compound the offence, Railtrack plans to erect a six feet high steel fence along parts of Totley Brook Road and Grove Road, on safety grounds!

The action group is now fighting this proposal and pressuring Railtrack to clean-up railway sleepers and cable drums on the embankment. They also want the piles of chippings removed to allow the regrowth of plants and for some re-planting of mixed species.

Totley Railway Action Group has been circulating information to residents. They feel that Railtrack misrepresented the nature and scale of their intentions and chose to let cost considerations over rule their obligations to the environment and the community. The aim now is to get some form of restoration to redress the damage and to prevent this happening elsewhere in future. You can contact them through Terry Gomersall on 236 4816.

A road or not?

Many walkers are familiar with Moss Road, which runs across Totley Moss from Stony Ridge (near Longshaw) to Totley Bents. The Totley Enclosure Act of 1842 designated it as "a public bridle road and footway and private carriage road and drift road". "Private" allows vehicle use only to those with an interest in the land.

Today, walkers are appalled at the damage done by vehicles driven largely by those with no, ‘interest in the land. Moss Road has been very badly affected by off-road vehicles and motor- cycles for many years. Deep trenches have been made, and serious damage caused to the ecology.

The road is partly in Derbyshire, partly in Sheffield. The Ramblers and others have expressed concern. Responding to this, Derbyshire County Council has now imposed a permanent Traffic Order, making the vehicular use of its section of the road a criminal offence.

We have suggested to Sheffield Council that they close the remaining section to vehicles, but they have decided against. We will continue to press the Council to close their section.

Fallen giant

Sadly we have to report that on March 6th at three-quarters before midnight, a member of the well-known Beech family of Vicarage Lane (whose roots have been in Dore for at least 150 years) departed this life, but in a manner which drew awe and respect from our villagers when the circumstances were learned.

Awe and respect? The fall of a 21 ton tree is awesome - and who would not respect the accuracy and delicacy with which the giant laid himself to rest between two houses, filling the space between them, but damaging neither!

The departed showed remarkable fortitude in submitting to fate without fuss. Indeed, Mr Kerry Brooksbank (who lives next door), his wife, nor a guest, heard nothing above the sound of the wind - no monstrous crash. However, Mr Brooksbank reports a series of percussive blasts of wind about 11.15pm, followed by the wail of a car alarm which he now knows, signalled the death throes of a Jaguar car.

This was crushed and telescoped to a 3 foot high wreck on his next door neighbour’s drive, as the giant fell from Dore churchyard across Vicarage Lane to within one foot of where Mr Brooksbank’s guest slept undisturbed!

It is Mr Brooksbank’s habit to take an early morning cup of tea in front of a window fronting Vicarage Lane and to receive a friendly wave from dairyman John Clarke. On this morning no wave but gesticulating and pointing. This brought him to the door to find a 20 foot deep sea of splintered branches and hear the laconic question "Has tha got a woodburning stove?"

The Council removed 13 tons of wood the next day, but still the trunk blocked Vicarage Lane. The trunk was removed on the 8th, but special lifting gear had to be brought in to hoist the 2 ½ ton stump.

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The condition of the beech trees is now under proper investigation - and at least one householder has fuel for next winter!

Farming notes

The great Foot & Mouth epidemic of 2001 is finally over. The first case was confirmed on Feb 19 2001 at Cheale Meats abattoir in Brentwood, Essex, and the country was declared free of the disease on Jan 21st 2002. By then 4,189,000 animals had been slaughtered on 10,436 farms. The vast majority were sheep, 3,454,000. The rest were 590,000 cattle, 141,000 pigs, 2000 goats, 1000 deer, and 1000 other animals.

The poor old sheep bore the brunt of the mass slaughter and yet it is a disease which hardly affects them, they’re killed just to try to contain the spread of this most infectious of diseases. It’s a bit like trying to stop the common cold spreading by killing all the children in a school if just one child catches a cold. In cattle and pigs it’s more serious. Although they may eventually recover it makes them so ill they have to be slaughtered on welfare grounds if nothing else.

A farmer we know in North Yorkshire saw the first symptoms in one cow in the morning and by lunchtime the whole herd was slavering at the mouth and had great sores on their mouths. If left the surface of the tongue sloughs off and the mouth is so sore they can’t eat. In pigs the lesions on their trotters get so bad that the entire hoof comes off and they can’t walk.

Nevertheless the slaughter policy adopted in this country is still the same as it was 100 years ago. In this day and age of effective vaccines and antibiotics there has to be a better way of dealing with it than this. Other countries seem to manage without all this carnage, why we have to have it goodness knows.

The original cause of the outbreak is still not proved but it is most likely from uncooked swill on a pig farm near Hadrians Wall in Northumberland. As a result pig swill has now been banned as a feedstuff. Speaking as one who made his living for 30 years by feeding swill I find this a great pity. Properly boiled and processed it makes an excellent food for pigs and at the same time gets rid of an embarrassing waste product from hotel and canteen kitchens, and the pigs love it.

The disease spreads far faster now because of the increased distances it is necessary to transport animals. In the old days we used to take all our pigs to Sheffield abattoir, a 20 minute journey. Then that closed and we took them to Chesterfield abattoir on Hipper St. Then that closed as well, so we had to send them to Cheale Meats in Essex. At the time of the outbreak Cheales were the only abattoir in the country taking this class of pig.

Before 1972 there were practically no regulations regarding the feeding of pig swill. In this area round Dore most farms kept a number of pigs and fed them on swill collected locally. These swill rounds were valued assets and woe betide anyone who pinched someone else’s swill. Most kitchens charged for swill, the cash was a perk for the kitchen staff. Larger places would put it out to tender, the Co-op at the bottom of Cemetery Rd charged £110 a month. When the swill was boiled and left to cool the fat rose to the top and was skimmed off. This was sold to processing companies and used for everything from cosmetics to animal feed.

At one time this was worth £50 a barrel (45 gallons) A good boil of a 1000 gallons could produce 2 barrels of fat, enough to cover the cost of collecting and boiling. Lodge Moor hospital could produce 5 tons of swill a week. Totley college used to make 1 ton. King Ecgberts school about ½ a ton. Now all this waste is macerated and put down the drains where it attracts rats and the waste fat blocks up the sewers.

In 1972 a new disease of pigs called swine vesicular disease appeared. The symptoms were identical to foot and mouth but it only affected pigs. To control this disease a whole raft of strict regulations governing the collection and boiling of swill were introduced. The cost of complying with these new rules was such that most swill feeders gave up.

In Dore the only people who upgraded their premises and continued were ourselves at Ryecroft Farm and Harry Valle up Long Line. The premises were inspected quarterley and given an annual licence. The inspections were done by Maff. The weak point of the system was that policing was done by the local authority.

At first it was done very efficiently. A small team in the public health department was set up who visited farms to see if they were using swill and if so if their licence was in order. Those without a licence were heavily fined. They also visited hotel kitchens to see who collected the swill and that he was a licensed person. This worked fine for 20 years, but then, in the nature of local authorities they started cutting back and unlicensed collectors started to appear. It cost over £1000 per year to comply with the regulations so any one with a few pigs feeding raw swill could do very nicely thank you.

I’d long thought it was only a matter of time before there was an outbreak of F & M at one of these illegal places, usually a few pigs on an allotment or hidden away on an estate. In the event it happened on licensed premises, although from subsequent reports it seems that standards had slipped to a terrible extent. The one thing that is certain about the whole sorry business is that the original infection was imported.

Farmers have long complained about the lack of inspections at sea and airports. When we visited California last year we were waiting for the bags to come off the carousel at San Francisco airport when a sniffer dog picked on my wife’s handbag. She was politely asked to open it and inside were two oranges and an apple, which were immediately confiscated. Compare this with Britain where you tramp through arrivals and never see a customs officer. After much badgering by the NFU the government has said they will take action. The action is going to be putting up some notices!

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