by Clare Druce
“But what about birds on the lower levels?” I asked. “Surely those on the high perches would defecate on those below?”
An awkward pause followed my practical query, before it was admitted that this potential problem had yet to be addressed.
We began to weary, sensing it was time to say goodbye. We’d made our points, exhibited the hens and arrived at the usual impasse. We all shook hands (the remaining phoney demonstrator included), veiled the hens once more and were shown out into the corridor, there to be re-united with our young reporter
She explained that the sight of the semi-naked hens pecking at each other had made her feel sick and faint. MAFF staff had found her in the corridor, pale and trembling, and kindly plied her with hot sweet tea.
*
The next day we took the hens to the home of Vivienne Jenkins, a new and dedicated supporter of ours. Vivienne, a talented artist, lived in a charming cottage in Hampton Wick with a cream-coloured whippet and a pale and glamorous ferret named Marilyn Monroe.
So four lucky little birds were spared ritual slaughter in the back room of a reeking butcher’s shop. Vivienne’s pretty garden was mostly down to lawn and apple trees: now, for the very first time, the hens would feel grass under their feet, roam around at will, seeking out insects and herbs, and be able to lay their eggs in seclusion. Fortunately it was springtime, giving time for their feathers to re-grow before the weather turned cold.
*
May 9th 1973: Brilliant publicity in the Surrey Comet. Our demo had made the headlines, and billboards throughout Surrey proclaimed FACTORY FARM ROW. INVASION ON MINISTRY. Two photographs half-filled the front page, one a group scene, the other a close-up of the hens. ‘Angry Ban Battery Farming protestors invaded the Ministry of Agriculture at Chessington on Monday – and dumped a crate of emaciated hens on startled civil servants. Their shock move came after demands for a probe into factory farming had been ignored,’ ran the story.
We felt hopeful. The battery system had been shown up for what it is, and in the very heart of Officialdom. Surely, change must be on its way.
*
June 18th 1973: This time a group of six activists, with Violet and me representing the hens, paid a second surprise visit to Chessington. We held up large photographs, one of caged hens, the other of crated veal calves. We’d come to deliver a letter demanding an inquiry into factory farming.
June 20th: ‘Second Siege on Factory Farming’ reported the Surrey Comet, below a photograph taken outside the Government Offices, the six of us lined up in blazing June sunshine. Violet was quoted: ‘An employee to whom we spoke at the gate agreed with us about factory farming methods and said “My God, they live in sheer agony. I’ve seen it.” ’
Again, and with hindsight I would say naively, we felt we’d made real headway.
Update:
In Chickens’ Lib’s January 1988 fact sheet, fifteen years after our first shock visit to MAFF, we were able to report official confirmation of our fears for the Getaway Cage: ‘Getaway Cages: Studies in Sweden on cages with perches at various levels, nests and sandbaths had shown disadvantages, particularly in terms of hygiene, inspection possibilities and egg quality.’ (Farmers Guardian, April 29th 1988)
Years later, Poultry World (April 2001) quoted poultry specialist Andrew Walker as deeming the Getaway Cage ‘flawed’ when put to the test. But loyal Mr Walker was at pains to forgive any lack of foresight for the invention’s ultimate failure which “in no way reflects badly on those scientists and advisers who put much intellectual effort into these designs.”
All that research, to prove what Basil Fawlty would have called the bleeding obvious. A pity nobody listened to us, back in 1973…
Blood running in the gutters
July 23rd 1973: Elizabeth Dunn, Editor of Checkout, the Guardian’s consumer column, paid a visit to the East End: ‘Cobb Street is not for the squeamish. It smells of old sawdust, entrails, rotting feathers, and worse. Checkout’s intrepid reporter had never actually seen blood running in the gutters before and it came as something of a shock. Mrs Spalding and her ladies are familiar figures around Cobb Street...’
Ms Dunn described her reception at the second shop she visited: ‘At Wallers next door, they were a bit friendlier. They were unloading their chickens… Why were they all bald, we asked. And why, when they fell on the pavement, couldn’t they get up? “They’re seconds,” Wallers’ man said, cheerily.’
Blood running in the gutters! Now something must be done! All those squalid shops would surely be closed down. We alerted Mr Foreman, able now to picture our letter resting in his in-tray. His reply, dated August 2nd, gave room for a little short-lived hope: ‘…Finally, thank you for providing the information gained in the course of your visit to the Petticoat Lane area on 13th July. The local authority concerned is being informed of your complaint, in collaboration with the Department’s local officers, to take appropriate action.’
Sadly, it turned out that the local authority’s idea of ‘appropriate action’ was to threaten to prosecute one of our supporters.
The criminal in question was Kathleen Graham, a forthright lady, then in her mid-sixties, described in a newspaper report as a travelling salesman. Kathleen was afraid of nothing when it came to the protection of animals. (Secretly, Violet and I had christened her ‘The Bulldog’.) Kathleen lived in rural Kent, and had a large garden. She would come with us on demos, taking hens home with her at the end of the day to restore them to health. She was also known to have given sanctuary to ex-battery hens bought from Sevenoaks market, and Kent County Council had Kathleen in its sights. Technically, such birds must be slaughtered within forty eight hours of purchase.
Never mind the blood running in East End gutters, never mind the callous attitudes on farms and in markets – it was Kathleen’s blood the authorities were after.
*
August 1973: Kathleen’s local paper reported: ‘A knock on the door of Mrs Kathleen Graham of Broad Oak, Heathfield, on Friday confirmed her belief that she could be in trouble with the law by giving a new home to three battery hens which friends bought at a Kent market. Her visitors were a police officer and two officials of Kent County Council’s Estate and Valuation Department (diseases of animals inspection) [one official for each little hen?] who explained that battery hens sold on the open market must be slaughtered within 48 hours of sale. A staunch opponent of battery farming, Mrs Graham is determined to keep the birds, thanked the men for their visit and is now waiting to hear if she is to be taken to court.’
August 31st 1973: The Sussex Express made Kathleen front-page news. Under the heading ‘Would rather go to court than have hens taken away’ Kathleen was quoted as saying: ‘I am quite prepared to go on breaking the law. I don’t give a hoot.’
That’s the spirit, Kathleen, we said when we read the cuttings she’d sent us. The battery hen needs people like you.
And Chickens’ Lib is born
August 1973. Scene: the lofty vestibule of the Daily Telegraph offices in Fleet Street (Wapping and Canary Wharf not as yet dreamed of). Half a dozen women and one elderly disabled man cluster around the familiar cage, from which four semi-naked hens peer out, viewing their strange new world with interest. We’re here to draw attention to what we’ve chosen to call Barnes Action Group, and we’re tired out. For hours we’ve been carrying the cage around the streets of London, saying the same thing over and over again: ‘These are battery hens. 80% of all UK laying hens live like this. Please don’t buy battery eggs.’
Despite our long day, Violet is in fighting form.
“We want to speak to a reporter about these hens,” she explains in ringing tones to the woman on reception.
Noting the cage, the woman looks surprised, livestock not generally being a feature of life in Fleet Street.
“This is an important issue, a story of calculated cruelty,” insists Violet.
The woman raises an eyebrow and puts through a call to Newsroom. Carefully we lowe
r the cage, hoping the feed and water or, much worse, smelly wet droppings, won’t spill out onto the gleaming floor. We prepare to wait.
A couple of minutes later a reporter appears. Neither bright-eyed nor seeming hopeful of a scoop he looks at us wearily, before listening half-heartedly to our complaints. When we admit to the name Barnes Action Group he’s dismissive.
“You’ll never get anywhere with a name like that.”
Downcast, we shuffle our aching feet. Violet and I, suddenly aware that he’s absolutely right, feel ashamed. What complete amateurs we are!
“What then?” Violet wonders aloud. “Chickens’ Lib?”
“Spot on! Perfect!” our cynical reporter cries.
Suddenly he’s seeing us in a new light.
*
No media coverage followed our visit to the Daily Telegraph but now we had a name to be proud of. Everyone knew what Women’s Lib meant and, as we were about to find out, the media loved our new name. Catchy, with a light touch yet deadly serious, in just two words it said it all.
OXFORDSHIRE DAYS
To the country
January 1974: After eight years in Barnes, the last four or so busy with demonstrations on behalf of the battery hen, my family had tired of the racket of air traffic heading for Heathrow. A plane thundering overhead meant putting your phone conversation on hold until the worst of the noise had faded. We didn’t get used to it, as some people do. And lovely though it was to have the river Thames just at the end of our road, and good as it had been for Duncan’s work, with Barnes Bridge station a minute away, convenient for Waterloo and the South Bank, we took the rash decision to leave.
We found a cottage in a charming Cotswold village. For Alison there was a middle school nearby, a mile’s walk over fields, knee-deep in buttercups in May, while Emily attended one of the smallest surviving schools in England, just a few doors from our home. When the school closed two years later, it numbered ten pupils and one teacher, the about-to-retire headmistress. With a single classroom and a cosy coke-fired stove in winter, Emily’s early schooling had the air of a chapter from the past.
But there were downsides to this idyllic way of life. Duncan, by now a free-lance violinist, spent a lot of time travelling back to London, or abroad, touring with The Fires of London. And then – cruel irony! – Brize Norton, a military airport six miles or so from our village, became the base for pilots training to fly Concord. Lying in bed in the early mornings we could hear the hum of aircraft engines revving and, if you put your hand on a windowpane when the great beast was passing, the glass vibrated ominously. On one occasion a large chunk of a neighbour’s ceiling came down.
Concord notwithstanding, for the next four years we did enjoy many aspects of country life. Our cat Chippy, London born and bred and one-time brave catcher of river rats, had come with us and settled down happily, and for the first time we had a dog, and then two. Our village had no street lighting, and the stars shone brightly at night. The sweet scent of wood smoke filled the air on winter evenings, and snowdrops grew in profusion under hedgerows.
Only a year after we’d moved out of London my parents followed us, having found a cottage some three miles from ours. So once again, Violet and I could get down to Chickens’ Lib work properly, together.
Whitehall’s had enough
April 3rd 1974: Before Violet left Croydon she took two featherless battery hens to Whitehall accompanied by Kathleen (Bulldog) Graham, Vivienne Jenkins and another woman supporter. Violet told me afterwards that things had turned ugly: they’d been pushed roughly down the steps by a strong-armed MAFF official.
Reported the Birmingham Post, of April 4th: ‘MINISTRY RUFFLES “CHICKENS’ LIB” FEATHERS Four housewives and two tattered battery hens were forcibly removed from the Ministry of Agriculture in Whitehall Place, London, yesterday. The women, members of Chickens’ Lib, had been trying to see Mr Fred Peart, the Minister, to persuade him to hold a public enquiry into factory farming, particularly as it affects hens which spend their lives in battery cages…As the women entered the Ministry, doormen and security officers rushed at them. Struggling fiercely, the women were forced into the street.’
The Daily Telegraph of the same date told a subtly different tale: ‘Four housewives carrying a cage with two tattered chickens in it were escorted from the Ministry of Agriculture’s Whitehall headquarters yesterday after trying to confront Mr Peart…’
Interesting, the way language can distort the emphasis. In DT-speak, the women were ‘escorted’ away (a charming word, suggestive of chivalry) while the women attempted to ‘confront’ Mr Peart, the word casting them in an aggressive light…
‘Them ministers is a cunning lot’
Disgusted by the evasive letters coming from MAFF, one of our supporters (whose first language wasn’t English) contacted us in a fit of exasperation: ‘Them Ministers is a cunning lot!’ she wrote. And we were inclined to agree.
*
July 15th 1974: Miss Ann Evans, replying to Chickens’ Lib on behalf of the Minister’s Parliamentary Secretary, came up with a novel explanation for the pitiful nakedness of millions of ‘spent’ battery hens: ‘The hardy breeds of bird usually kept on free range are normally more heavily feathered than the hybrids which have been evolved for intensive conditions of controlled environment. This may go some way towards explaining the difference in appearance between the two types…’
So there we had it, on authority. Battery hens are semi-naked because they’ve no need for feathers in the battery sheds. Battery hens are of a special breed, designed to be free from those oppressively warm feathers.
*
August 14th 1974: Edward Bishop, Minister of State for MAFF gave Chickens’ Lib the brush-off: ‘Dear Mrs Spalding, Mr Moyle told me about his talk with you in June when you showed him some chickens. I am confident that I am entirely familiar with the detail of your representations and while I greatly respect your concern in this matter, I doubt that another meeting would be helpful…there is no evidence that intensive husbandry systems are necessarily detrimental to animal welfare, and we have adequate statutory powers to deal with offenders.’
How these ‘offenders’ were to be identified was not made clear. We feared that most battery hens lived out their lives unobserved by anyone in authority.
*
March 19th 1976: Gavin Strang, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, wrote to John Stanley, MP, to mollify one of Mr Stanley’s constituents, a supporter of Chickens’ Lib: ‘In one of her letters Mrs Spalding refers to the unorthodox methods used by her group to obtain hens for demonstration purposes. The group admitted that the hens which they produced to the ministry, as evidence of bad conditions in battery houses, had been purchased from premises in the Petticoat lane area of London and at other markets where birds are sold for immediate slaughter. Such birds have their tail feathers clipped back as required by law, and as they are often in a moult they present a bedraggled appearance. Moulting is a normal process in poultry which occurs under any system of management when birds reach the end of lay, and it does not reflect any ill-treatment.’
Since those far-off days, I’ve observed many hens in a natural moult. Not one of them has made me think of an animal version of a concentration camp victim.
In fact, feather pecking in cages is the direct result of confinement, when hens can no longer forage for their own food. Dr Karen Davis, an American campaigner for respect for chickens, describes caged hens’ frustrations thus: ‘The hens’ genetically-based foraging behaviour must have an outlet that in cages becomes misdirected against cage mates, because the bodies of the other hens is the only soft, flexible, biteable material in the metal, wire, or plastic prison.’ (1)
*
September 3rd 1976: More from Parliamentary Secretary Gavin Strang, to Anthony Grant, MP, this time, and yet another attempt to pull wool over the eyes of one of our supporters: ‘…Normally it is not profitable for producers to keep battery hens after the age
of 70-76 weeks when they cease to lay at an economic level, but most of the birds are in excellent bodily condition when they are sent for slaughter.’ Wrong, Mr Strang! Vast numbers of battery hens suffer from brittle bone disease, more properly known as osteoporosis, that dread disease of the elderly. As long ago as 1948 Picture Post ran an article by L.F. Easterbrook: ‘…But can it really be true that birds kept under these unnatural conditions, without exercise, without exposure to the sun and the wind and rain…often with bones so brittle that they will snap like dry twigs…can it really be true that the eggs they produce for us are just as nourishing as eggs from birds kept very differently?’
It’s the almost total lack of ability to move, plus the huge demand on the hen’s reserves of calcium (to form egg shell) that ruin her bones; the modern hen lays an egg most days – compare this with the 150 laid annually by pre-war hens. Thirteen years after Mr Strang’s claim, research at Bristol’s AFRC Institute of Food Research was to confirm that 24% of battery hens, sampled from eight separate battery farms, had broken bones by the time they were removed from cages prior to slaughter, while breaks occurring after transport and slaughter reached almost 100%. (2)
Mr Strang had probably asked advice before shooting his ‘excellent bodily condition’ line. It would be interesting to know the name of the poultry ‘expert’ who misinformed him. Or did Mr Strang simply pluck the notion out of the air, hoping thereby to keep us quiet?
Mercifully, the media were by now sitting up and taking notice, and offering our campaign much-needed support.
So what went wrong, down on the farm?
In Britain, the debasement of poultry farming started in earnest back in the late 1940s, in response to the post-war quest for cheap and plentiful food, following years of shortages. Suddenly, sustainable systems were no longer valued. Dazzled by the possibilities of genetic selection for fast growth in meat animals, and unnaturally high yields of eggs, agriculture experts turned their backs on traditional wisdom. At the same time, near-total automation was becoming a reality.