There is an eerie feel about the countryside, one cloaked in fear and foreboding. In the Yorkshire Dales, near Hawes, a pall of smoke drifting across the hillside reminds everyone that foot and mouth has struck a local dairy herd. Each TV and radio bulletin is monitored for news and the latest actual or suspected outbreak. The media is watched more carefully than the weather; every phone call is answered with hesitation. There is a feeling of impotence and helplessness.
By and large the public have heeded requests to stay away, whilst local people walk their dogs along the roads, avoiding footpaths and tracks. Every farm drive has "Keep out" signs and straw soaked in disinfectant is strewn across all entrances. Almost as important as information on the disease's progress across the countryside are the latest details of possible licences to move stock around. Pregnant ewes need to be brought in for lambing; pastures are becoming overgrazed. Routine maintenance work has been postponed. Contracts to erect fencing, lay hedges or rebuild walls have been halted. No one is going to risk transporting the disease around.
It is a different story in East Yorkshire, however. Here one farmer told me that he thought there were more cyclists, walkers and horse riders out last weekend than at any time in the past three months. Landowners have witnessed people tearing down official footpath closure signs and blatantly walking across their land. I have been told of two incidents of farmers being assaulted when they asked people to respect the footpath closures and the foot and mouth precautions.
There have been no confirmed outbreaks in East Yorkshire at time of writing, but there are reports of a suspected infection in sheep near Driffield. Everyone waits for the results of tissue tests with bated breath. One farmer's wife told me that even though the disease had not reached them, near Hornsea, most daily contact with the outside world had ended. No one stops to chat over the farm gate and feed company salesmen no longer call, but take orders by telephone instead.
