by Clare Druce
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We felt bitter that the case of the Surrey battery farmer was a one-off. We’ve come across so many cases of neglect, including hens dead (sometimes long-dead) in their cages. Once, in a bleak place with the even bleaker name of Scapegoat Hill, Violet and I noticed some half demolished battery sheds. The roof of one had already been removed, and there, for any passer-by to see, were dead hens in several of the abandoned cages. I’m sure we must have reported it – and even more sure that no good resulted from our complaint. We did reflect at the time that if those corpses had been of dogs or cats, it just might have been a different story.
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We were bitter about other things too – the blatantly dishonest advertising of battery eggs. In particular, a company going by the gross misnomer of Goldenlay had caught our eye. Having taken note of Goldenlay’s marketing tactics, flagged up in the pages of Poultry World, and knowing the company to be based in Yorkshire, we decided action was called for.
So here began a series of happenings that took in the sustained hounding of a leading name in the world of battery eggs, much dressing up, a visit to the police, a visit from the police, and contact, of sorts, with the Royal Family.
The Queen and Goldenlay
In December 1970, Egg Farms Limited had been formed. Just a year later the company was to become Goldenlay Eggs (UK) Ltd., the result of a merger between Thames Valley Eggs, Yorkshire Egg Producers, West Cumberland Farmers, and giant battery egg producer Jack Eastwood. Goldenlay set up in Carlton House in Wakefield, and dreamed up its slogan The Taste of the Country, so epitomising the misleading marketing of battery eggs.
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Back in 1976 we’d read in Poultry World of an art competition: ‘Latest national promotion by Goldenlay is a joint effort with The Observer newspaper’ ran the heading. Prizes for the winners in the children’s competitions (to feature Goldenlay eggs – what else?) included trips to the USA for nine children, with ten days on a ranch in Arizona, three days in Los Angeles, plus visits to Disneyland and a film studio. Judging the sculpture entries was the renowned sculptor Elizabeth Frink, while Laurie Lee, that champion of all things romantically rural, was to select the winning poems. Could either of these celebrities have known anything about Goldenlay’s hens, every one of them caged? We could only hope not.
In 1981 Goldenlay celebrated its tenth anniversary. The occasion was marked by the publication of a shiny (golden) brochure, complete with a message of congratulation from the then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Rt Hon Peter Walker, MP.
As well as enlisting the support of the Minister, the brochure featured celebrities of the day… Larry Grayson, Sir Roger Bannister, Lance Percival – all pictured presenting prizes or cheques to charitable causes. Surely none of them could have been aware of the animal suffering they were helping to promote?
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Goldenlay was notoriously devious in its advertising, and the industry made no bones about it. On October 2nd 1980 Poultry World ran an item about the company’s marketing tactics: ‘Goldenlay are to spend £225,000 on TV commercials…Britain’s biggest egg marketer has spent some considerable time researching consumers’ attitudes and this confirmed that the average shopper likes to link eggs to a farm background…With most of Goldenlay’s 100,000 cases a week being sold through multiple grocers, this was an important factor in the new marketing programme. The need to promote Goldenlay eggs as local, farm fresh eggs was apparent, distracting the housewife from her vision of the factory-farmed eggs associated with supermarkets…The commercials feature three farming characters, linking in with the housewife’s wish for farm fresh eggs…Both commercials are amusing, ending with the Goldenlay image-builder “The taste of the country”…’
In the same issue PW revealed that: ‘…two major parts of [Goldenlay’s] £750,000 expenditure on egg promotion this year – just under a half p a dozen – follows this autumn. With the £225,000 TV campaign, some £40,000 is also being spent on a “Nest-Egg Competition” run in conjunction with Family Circle and the Leicester Building society.’
Perhaps if representatives from Family Circle and the Leicester Building Society had been with Chickens’ Lib when we’d watched an amazing and touching sight, they might not have been so keen to support Goldenlay’s cynical ‘nest-egg’ competition.
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Violet and I had purchased four hens with an especially harrowing history. We’d called at a small poultry slaughterhouse in North Yorkshire and, though the owner had refused to sell, he was helpful. Apparently only that week some ‘spent’ battery hens had been brought in, but been spared immediate slaughter when a battery farmer had called by and spotted an opportunity of some dirt-cheap replacement birds. No doubt he’d reasoned that they’d lay fairly well for another year, with the advantage of costing him next to nothing.
So, instead of being slaughtered that day, the hens suffered the trauma of transport to another farm, to be re-installed in that farmer’s set of cages. The slaughterhouse owner cheerfully directed us to the nearby farm, and the farmer proved willing to part with a few birds from his second-hand purchase.
One of them we immediately called Denise – her facial feathers gave the impression of heavy eyebrows, reminding us of Denis Healey, MP (later to become Lord Healey). As soon as we got home we transferred our new arrivals to a straw-filled enclosure, complete with feed and water, then paused for a minute or two to watch them – our usual indulgence after a tiring day out.
Immediately, and to our wonderment, one hen began to build herself a nest. Carefully, she selected strands of straw, picking them up in her beak one by one, placing them to one side of her body, then the other, weaving a perfect structure around her. On and on she went with her task until she was almost hidden from sight.
To us this was a spectacular example of how, despite thousands of years of domestication and generations of incarcerated ancestors, every one of a hen’s primeval instincts remains intact. Inside each hen’s brain, and maybe in her conscious mind too, those instincts remain locked up, awaiting a chance to be enacted. Only most battery hens never do get their chance.
How dare Goldenlay promote their battery eggs with cruel puns on ‘Nest-Eggs’!
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June 11th 1981: Incensed by Goldenlay’s deceptions, Chickens’ Lib took up their theme of the three jolly farmers. A group of us met up outside Goldenlay’s HQ at Carlton House in Wakefield, some of us dressed as farmers and carrying baskets of ‘farm fresh’ battery eggs. The event went well, though the management declined to accept our offering of cruelly produced eggs.
Good publicity followed, with a photo in the Guardian the following day of the three ‘farmers’ (Violet, Irene and me), complete with battered hats and straw in our hair, alongside one of our number in a hired hen costume. The article concluded: ‘The “farmers” of Chickens’ Lib were not allowed into the Goldenlay offices to put their case.’
The Yorkshire Post reported the demo too, quoting a company spokesman as saying: ‘Our egg production is carried out within regulations, and our advertisements have been approved by the relevant authorities.’
Apparently the Advertising Standards Authority was happy to turn a blind eye on advertisements clearly calculated to mislead.
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Derek Gee, a regular contributor to Poultry World, had doubtless been reading about our exploits, and on July 20th 1981 he sounded off in its pages: ‘With no wars to fight, Empire to rule or natives to save, the militant missionaries who want to turn the clock back seem well on their way to winning, at least the battle of words. If I refer to them as a sort of pseudo-intellectual middle–class National Front it is not in order to insult, but to underline their approach, their attitude and background.’
Don’t worry Mr Gee, we don’t feel insulted. It’s just good to know you’re so rattled.
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September 23rd 1981: Punch magazine took an interest in Chickens’ Lib’s ‘militant’ exploits, likening us to the Provi
sionals of the environmental movement.
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December 9th 1981: Accompanied by a walking Christmas tree, Father Christmas attempted to deliver a parcel of dishonest advertising to Goldenlay’s Managing Director. I’d recently discovered a talent for writing corny verse and we handed out copies of The First Goldenlay Song to our assembled supporters, to be sung to the tune of Jingle Bells:
Goldenlay, Goldenlay, we would like to know
Why you keep your hens caged up
And make them suffer so-oh.
Goldenlay, Goldenlay,
Give us no more guff,
We have come from far and wide
To call your awful bluff.
Goldenlay, Goldenlay,
Where are your eggs laid?
In stinking sheds, on wire floors,
That’s where the profit’s made.
Goldenlay, Goldenlay,
Tell us why the hens
Are prone to stress and fatty liver syndrome
And die from cage fatigue. (Two more verses followed.)
Mike Maas, a stalwart supporter on our demos, played Father Christmas, cutting an imposing figure as he pulled a glittering sledge on which was poised a gold-wrapped box containing our gift – a large scroll of dishonest advertising slogans. Goldenlay’s management proved not to be in party mood. A spokesperson for the MD refused to accept our gift and, after we’d laid it at his feet, kicked it vigorously back in our direction. As the Yorkshire Post put it: ‘Santa was shown the door and asked by police to leave an egg firm’s office after he and ten helpers tried to deliver a special message yesterday.’
Never mind that our gesture went to waste, it was the publicity we were after. And we got this in plenty, in local radio, in newspapers and on BBC TV’s Look North, the programme giving us a full five minutes. Our impromptu choir sounded a bit weak but the words came over clearly enough, on radio and on TV.
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At the time of our Goldenlay demos, I was the visiting clarinet teacher at Wakefield High School for Girls, then a rather stiff institution (I thought) and uncannily like the school I’d once attended. Twice a week I would turn up, soberly dressed, to give my lessons and seeming, I trust, quite normal.
Although there was no way that Chickens’ Lib’s demos could have escaped the notice of teachers or girls, no mention was ever made of them, at least not in my presence. Such behaviour was obviously beyond the pale. And so I led a double life, although, due to our excellent publicity, my exploits were certainly no secret.
One day I received a letter from the headmistress. Seeing the heading, I read on with trepidation, fully expecting the sack. But no, the letter was to say that she admired our campaign, and wished us luck.
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Spring 1982. We tell our supporters: ‘Perhaps the most bizarre thing to have happened since we last wrote to you has been the conferring of the Queen’s Royal Warrant of Appointment on Goldenlay Eggs (UK) Ltd! It appears that Goldenlay has been supplying the Royal Household with eggs for several years and the firm has exercised its right to apply for a Royal Warrant, and been successful.’
We wrote to the Queen, pointing out the typical size of a battery cage for four or five hens. We said: ‘We feel that in giving Goldenlay Eggs (UK) Ltd. this Royal Warrant your Majesty is expressing approval of the battery system.’ Several well-known and well-respected people endorsed our letter with their signatures.
We approached the Lord Chamberlain, whose office dealt with Royal Warrants. ‘However,’ [wrote the Secretary of the Royal Household Tradesmen’s Warrants Committee, replying on the Lord Chamberlain’s behalf], ‘the firm assures me that the Code of Practice for Intensive Farming and other regulations governing standards of hygiene and hen welfare laid down by the responsible authorities, are strictly adhered to…’ etc. etc.
Rather than investigate our complaint, it was the ‘flying to the defence of factory farmers’ syndrome, the familiar brick wall. ‘Hen welfare’ did the Lord Chamberlain’s Secretary say? Less than the area of a sheet of A4, constructed of harsh sloping metal, for each hen for life? Whatever was the Queen thinking of?
We conferred with CIWF and agreed on a plan. We’d send the Queen two free-range eggs daily (not to leave the Duke of Edinburgh high and dry, with nothing but a battery egg for breakfast). We each managed three postings, before being asked politely to desist. Good publicity followed this initiative.
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April 6th 1982: We presented Goldenlay with the Chickens’ Lib 1982 Award for Cruelly Produced Eggs, on this occasion adopting a patriotic theme. A dozen or so of us met up near the company’s HQ decked out in red, white and blue, along with Sir Walter Raleigh (Mike Maas, in splendid hired costume). The image of Mike struggling to force his long legs into tights in a chilly Wakefield car park would stay with us forever. The Award, in the form of a huge certificate, was eye-catching. Margaret Skinner, a tireless supporter of CIWF and Chickens’ Lib, had designed and painted it, and it looked splendid.
We had two new Goldenlay songs prepared. This is verse one of the first song, set to the tune of The British Grenadiers:
We think the Queen’s mistaken
To approve of Goldenlay.
The hens who lay the Royal eggs
Never see the light of day.
No sun for them, no daylight
No space to move about,
They live their lives in misery
Of that we have no doubt.
Our second song was sung to the tune of Sing a Song of Sixpence. It went like this:
Eleven million battery hens
Shut up in the gloom,
Wishing they could wander,
Longing for more room.
Gripping with their feet, a-
Round the wire floor,
Oh isn’t there, some-where,
An anti-cruelty law.
So we have come to Wakefield
To plead with Goldenlay
To listen to our message
This chilly April day.
We hope you will consider
A basic change of scene
And give your hens their freedom
And eggs fit for a Queen!
The Wakefield Express reported: ‘Chickens’ Lib protestors and the management of Wakefield-based company Goldenlay were involved in yet another confrontation on Tuesday when the group tried to deliver an award for “cruelly produced eggs”… But the management at the Sandy Walk headquarters refused to accept the award, telling the protestors to leave it and a letter of explanation in the doorway. The protestors, all wearing red, white and blue were complaining about Goldenlay being granted a Royal Warrant by the Queen…Co-founder of Chickens’ Lib, Mrs Violet Spalding, said the group was very concerned that the Queen had given Goldenlay her patronage. “Goldenlay have been granted a Royal Warrant and we want the Queen to rescind it,” she said.’
‘Bystander’ of The Tatler ran a piece about us too, alongside photographs of smart people getting wet at Henley Regatta. ‘Anyone passing the Yorkshire eggquarters [sic] of Goldenlay Ltd. one day in May would have seen the Chickens’ Lib 1982 Award for Cruelly Produced Eggs being unceremoniously kicked down the steps by a ruffled director. The Chickens’ Lib representative, quixotically dressed as Sir Walter Raleigh, had presented the award after The Queen conferred a Royal Warrant on Britain’s biggest battery egg producer earlier this year.’
Bystander did rather muddle our demos, one with another, but ended: ‘They also produce fact-filled news sheets which convince that no fowl ought to spend its brief life suffering in a space the size of this page.’ So this last bit was crystal clear.
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June 5th–12th 1982 CIWF organised a Don’t Eat a Battery Egg Week and to support it we held yet another demo outside Goldenlay’s HQ. By now, the company must surely have come to dread our dedication.
We’d asked supporters to make cages from cardboard boxes, cutting slits on one side so they could peer out from between rudimentary bars. We
sang a new Goldenlay song, this time to the stirring tune of ‘Jerusalem’. The first verse went like this:
And were those eggs for Goldenlay
Laid midst a pleasant country scene?
Where are the hens who laid your eggs?
What does your silly slogan* mean?
And do you really think you should
Deceive the public as you do?
When all the hens who lay your eggs
Live in conditions most obscene.
(* ‘The Taste of the Country’)
After delivering our letter to Peter Kemp, Goldenlay’s MD, we proceeded in a flock to Trading Standards, where we handed in our letter of complaint about dishonest advertising. We had a special song for TS, set to ‘You are my Sunshine’:
We fear the standards
Of Trading Standards
Have really sunk to
An all-time low.
Who shall we turn to
If Trading Standards
Won’t help us out
Oh where shall we go? (Etc.)
Once again, publicity was excellent, with the first demo featured on local TV and in several newspapers.
We understood all too well why Goldenlay was hell-bent on defending the battery system. But the police? Now that was to come as quite a surprise.
Police support battery system
We must have been feeling energetic for, after one of our Goldenlay demonstrations, Violet and I decided the day was yet young. Furious about the battery system in general and Goldenlay in particular, we decided to visit one of their farms. We knew of a large one, set in a remote location up on the moors above Sowerby Bridge. We just might strike lucky…
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And there it was, a huge blot on the grand landscape, row upon row of long low battery sheds dropping down the hillside. Not for the first time, we were reminded of concentration camps.
As we drew nearer, any hope of buying hens faded. This was no small-time enterprise with a farmer keen to pocket a fiver. We noticed a hut, probably somewhere for workers to brew up tea. A man hurried out to waylay us, possibly the manager. We put our request, only to be asked, none too gently, to leave the premises.