Country life Poor cows
Leanda de Lisle
You can't counsel cows. They have to work their way through their feelings and that's what 50-odd cows are doing right now in a field near Lutterworth. Not so long ago they were fat, happy beasts, ready for market, But then a walker left the gate to their field open. Naturally, the grass looked greener on the other side of the fence and out they pottered — into a night of horror.
Cows don't exactly streak along and I imagine them ambling into the darkness, sniffing the cold air, uncertain which direc- tion to go in. Across the road our friend, the farmer's sister, keeps land of her own. She had got fed up with walkers and lam- pers leaving her farm gates open and now, having built smaller gates for the walkers alongside them, she keeps them chained. However, not all the local farmers had had such foresight. The cows found gate after gate had been left open for them, so on they walked towards Lutterworth.
I wish the cows had found their way right up to the gate-opener's door and berated him for having guided them into a town. But instead they made their way down Lut- terworth's streets. It was quiet and nobody spotted them rolling along, with their heads swinging from side to side, perhaps glancing in shop windows as they went by. Out on the other side of the town they came, continuing on their three-mile trek to the Ml. Not being very streetwise they followed one another onto the motorway and into the path of a lorry and a coach which ran smack into them.
By some miracle the drivers and their passengers survived the collision with noth- ing more to show for it than a few scratches and bruises. But 16 cows were fatally injured: some were killed outright, others had to be shot when the police vets arrived.
The rest were herded into three nearby fields where several more were put down over the next few days. Those that remain are in a state of post-traumatic shock. Nobody can persuade the cows to leave their new homes. Their owner just has to wait and see whether they will ever be well enough to be moved.
Things are difficult enough for farmers without having to cope with this sort of thing, but it won't be the last time that they do. When our farm men find members of the public walking their Rottweilers far from public footpaths they are told, 'We can go where we like. We have the right to roam.' You can tell them that the right to roam will only apply to open countryside until you are blue in the face. That's not the way ordinary people see it. Besides, as Tony Blair has made clear, it's open season on farmers and their ilk. No one cares what the law actually says, anyway.
My hope is that, if responsible walkers are encouraged rather than resisted, they might be prepared to show up irresponsible members of the public as they have, in the past, shown up farmers who have blocked their rights of way. But I wouldn't like to think what would happen to some nice middle-class rambler if he fell into an argu- ment with a lamper. You need a rougher sort of chap to deal with them.
The best thing we ever did was allow a few locals to shoot pigeon and pheasant in the copses near the house. They give us a bottle of whisky at Christmas and nobody dumps rubbish is the woods anymore. If we were approached by some half-decent- looking lampers we would probably look kindly on them as well. We'd know they would close gates, go into some fields, not others, shoot rabbits not foxes and put the fear of God into any puny burglar who crossed their path.
As any number of poor cows could tell you, if people in the countryside aren't with you, they're against you. I know which I prefer.
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