by Clare Druce
On principle, we didn’t hurry. By now we’d found we could pick up information just by keeping our eyes wide open, and maybe passing the time of day with one of the workers. We’d thought at first that all the sheds were closed but we noticed one with its sliding door fully open, so we sidled over, getting as near to it as we dared. The cages near the open door seemed to be empty, though in the gloom we couldn’t see far into the shed.
But now we were listening, appalled. Usually, the only sound from a battery unit is the dull hum of extractor fans, and, if the doors are open, the low and continuous complaining sound of thousands of hens. But this was different. A ghastly screaming was coming from the open shed. What could be happening in there? We returned to the car feeling shaky, determined to investigate further.
*
We drove down into Sowerby Bridge to the police station, to report the sounds of distress. The police officer on duty was courteous, taking notes in the long-winded way of police officers. Eventually we left, satisfied with the promise that someone would report back to us in a day or two.
By now, we’d had enough of campaigning, and returned with relief to our respective homes. It had been a long day.
*
When the police did contact us it was the usual well-worn story: the officers visiting the farm had found everything in order, though they’d not been allowed inside the sheds ‘because of the disease risk’.
By now we’d come to realise that the catchers must have been emptying the open shed and the screaming we’d heard was of terror and pain, as the hens were dragged from their cages.
Usually catching goes on at night, so the birds can be ready and waiting at the slaughterhouse first thing in the morning. This daytime catching probably meant the birds were in for a long journey. Or a long wait on the transport wagons. There are fewer than half a dozen slaughterhouses for laying hens in the UK, so many ‘spent’ hens, often almost devoid of feathers, must travel a hundred, perhaps two hundred miles, crammed into crates, frequently suffering the pain of shattered bones.
We wrote to the police superintendent for the area, putting before him the whole question of the suffering of battery hens and the ineffectual animal protection laws, taking the Goldenlay farm on his patch as an example.
*
Early in August we had a family holiday in Scotland, and on our return Violet had a tale to tell.
A few days after our departure, she’d been at home on her own when, with no warning, the police superintendent from Sowerby Bridge had called on her, along with a young constable (the Super’s Little Henchman, as she described him). By the end of the visit, she wished she’d had someone with her, simply to witness that extraordinary hour.
The ‘Super’ had ordered Chickens’ Lib not to cause any more trouble. He’d said that since we’d wanted the hens for propaganda, we had in fact been trespassing. And now his ‘little henchman’ took over. The battery system was the very best one for egg production! The hens were warm and dry and cosseted, etc. He went on to assure Violet that, despite not being allowed into the sheds, he’d looked through the windows and it had all looked fine – a remark which gave his little game away, since purpose-built battery sheds (as these were) have no windows.
Then the Super warned Violet that if we committed a breach of the peace we could be in for violence (from the farmer, he hinted), threatening that if we returned to the farm we’d be told to bugger off. (We didn’t mind the buggering off bit, but the mention of violence didn’t appeal.) His parting words, Violet told me, had been ‘Don’t let me see you in the Calder Valley again!’
Now the Calder Valley encompasses a large area, and would be hard to avoid. The prohibition became a standing joke – ‘My God! We’re in the Calder Valley! – but the threat had been disturbing as well as ludicrous, because of what it told us about the attitude of some police officers.
I was as outraged as Violet by all this, though at least I knew she’d not been intimidated. Her calm manner must have been deeply disappointing to her surprise visitors. Violet described the police visit to Richard Wainwright, our ever-supportive MP, hoping he might advise us on how to take the matter further. But he explained that without a witness our case was hopeless from the start.
*
Following a hunch, in 2010 I wrote to the West Yorkshire Police, outlining the police visit to Violet (though omitting some details) and asking for the name of Sowerby Bridge’s Police Superintendent at that time. The reply I received stated that although there were no records available of the visit I described, it having occurred so many years ago, the Superintendent (or sub Divisional Commander) at that time had been Superintendent Dick Holland (1).
Now Dick Holland had been second in command in the hunt for the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, part of the team that delayed Sutcliffe’s arrest while the enquiry focused on the hoaxer, ‘Wearside Jack’. And before this, Dick Holland had been prominent in the team investigating the brutal murder in 1975 of a child, Lesley Molseed. This hopelessly flawed investigation had resulted in a tragic miscarriage of justice. A vulnerable and totally innocent man, Stefan Kiszko, was wrongfully imprisoned for sixteen years, only to die two years after his release from a mental ward, having developed schizophrenia while in jail. An in-depth account in the Guardian of the botched case of Stefan Kiszko stated: ‘The treatment of Kiszko by a team including Supt Dick Holland, who was later involved in the bungled hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, was a disgrace. Kiszko was not told he was entitled to a solicitor, was denied the company of his mother and a confession was obtained as he sat alone and dazed with detectives.’
The author of the article, written to mark the eventual arrest of Lesley’s real killer, Ronald Castree, was Martin Wainwright, son of our late MP (2).
*
A year or two after our visit to the unit in the Calder Valley, an ex-poultry industry worker wrote to us describing the catching process. Had we received that letter earlier, we’d have immediately guessed the significance of those Goldenlay hens’ cries. Here is part of his letter:
‘Birds were dragged from the cages by their leg. Four birds were carried in each hand end down, down the shed to the door. The noise was deafening, the smell was putrid. Legs, wings and necks were snapped without concern. As I now look back, the whole system is incredibly cruel. After saying all this, this particular farm was good as far as battery farms go. The floors were swept daily and precautions taken against disease and pests…I gave up work in the poultry industry after bad dreams at night.’
Five Freedoms and a Convention
In 1965 the Brambell inquiry into the welfare of intensively kept animals concluded that the protection of animals should go further than simply prohibiting cruel treatment. Henceforth, positive welfare was to be considered. Fourteen years later, in 1979, as a direct though much delayed result of Brambell the concept of the Five Freedoms emerged. They are:
• Freedom from hunger and thirst
• Freedom from discomfort
• Freedom from pain, injury or disease
• Freedom to express normal behaviour
• Freedom from fear and distress
These aspired-for freedoms are frequently quoted in official quarters, not least in the various codes of recommendations for farmed animals, and in publications of the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC). Codes do not carry the weight of law but, in the event of a prosecution, failure to have followed the advice contained in a relevant code tends to establish guilt.
Logically, and given the conditions in battery cages or a conventional broiler, duck or turkey unit, any farmer charged with cruelty should have his or her guilt established pretty quickly, for how could the fourth freedom, ‘freedom to express normal behaviour’ ever be ensured within such barren and restrictive environments?
Somehow, MAFF (now DEFRA) has managed, with a barrage of meaningless words, to obscure the fact that illegal practices are the norm, down on the factory farm. The odd thing is, they’ve got
away with it.
*
Established in 1949, the Council of Europe (COE) now embraces forty-seven European countries. The COE’s primary goal is to guarantee the dignity of the nations and citizens of Europe by enforcing ‘respect for our fundamental values’ including the rule of law (1). Human rights are high on the agenda but farmed animals have not been forgotten. In 1976 the UK ratified the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes.
In May 1983 the then Minister of Agriculture, Peter Walker, wrote to his colleague Sir Keith Joseph MP. Peter Walker’s letter must have stemmed from one of mine to Sir Keith, but the mists of time prevent me from remembering exactly why I’d written to him. Here are extracts from Peter Walker’s letter to Sir Keith: ‘Mrs Druce is in regular correspondence with my Department…she and her mother, Mrs Spalding, are the founders of and motive force behind Chickens’ Lib, a pressure group which strongly opposes the battery cage system …she has expressed the view that British livestock farming is (also) contrary to the European Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes, which the UK has ratified. The Government does not accept any of these contentions.’ (The other contention involved accusations of Government failure to adhere to UK legislation.)
Let’s look at specifics, by taking a few examples from this Convention’s ‘Recommendations for Domestic Fowl – gallus gallus [chickens]’. In line with recommendations for other species, there’s a section at the beginning called General Provisions. This consists of a description of the natural behaviour of chickens, and informs us that the domestic fowl is descended from the red junglefowl of south-east Asia, a species domesticated for the last six to eight thousand years: ‘Although there is variation between strains of domestic fowl, all retain certain biological characteristics of their wild ancestors. Junglefowl show complex patterns of courtship, nesting, laying, incubation, brooding behaviour and defence against predators…Domestic fowl have retained the typical feeding pattern of junglefowl, which consists of pecking and ground-scratching, followed by ingestion…if frustrated these behaviours may be re-directed towards injury to or even cannibalism of flock-mates…The motivation to dust-bathe remains particularly strong, even in birds reared on wire floors.’ (2) Then we learn that: ‘The design, construction and maintenance of enclosures, buildings and equipment for poultry shall be such that they allow the fulfilment of essential biological needs and the maintenance of good health.’ (3)
Sometimes ‘should’ is used, and sometimes ‘shall’, as in ‘…and equipment for poultry shall be such that they allow the fulfilment of essential biological needs…’ This variation in terms was puzzling, so eventually I wrote to the COE, querying the difference, if any, between ‘should’ and ‘shall’.
On September 20th 1999 I received a reply from the COE’s Directorate of Legal Affairs, Laurence Lwoff, who wrote: ‘The articles contained in these Recommendations, as you rightly pointed out, contained provisions with “shall”. These provisions have to be applied by the Parties [i.e. member states which have ratified the Convention]. The provisions containing the word “should” are to be considered as guidelines and duly taken into consideration as indicating the way forward.’
So that was clear enough. Any member state that ratifies a COE Convention is under a legal obligation to carry out certain of its provisions – its ‘shalls’, so to speak.
I queried this state of affairs with the RSPCA and in a letter dated May 4th 2007, the then Director General of the RSPCA, Jackie Ballard assured Chickens’ Lib that the Society had often been present on working parties and drafting groups, and had raised with our government the issue of the UK’s duties following ratification of the Convention, as had Ruth Harrison. (I was already well aware that Ruth – author of the 1964 book Animal Machines – had bravely carried on travelling to Strasbourg, fighting the animals’ cause at meetings even when seriously, indeed terminally, ill).
Over the years we drew attention in relevant places to the UK’s failure to take heed of the demands of the Convention, but to no effect.
A touch of arson
One summer’s evening, two be-suited men appeared on our doorstep, discreetly holding out proof of identification.
I took them into the living room, curious as to why they’d come but not worried. Chickens’ Lib’s conscience was clear: we didn’t steal our hens, we bought them, and we disapproved of violence. What could the CID want with me?
It transpired that I was suspected of a crime. There’d been an arson attack at a nearby Goldenlay depot. Two thousand pounds’ worth of damage had been caused, to vehicles. This was news to me, and I said so.
One of the detectives fixed me with a steady gaze. “What if I were to tell you that someone of your appearance was seen leaving the scene of the crime?” he asked.
I’m afraid I laughed. I repeated that I didn’t even know the crime had been committed (though would read about it later, in Poultry World).
The officers seemed to accept that they’d drawn a blank, and soon we were shaking hands, and I was seeing them to the door.
*
At that time we had a small and highly unsuccessful vegetable plot. When the door-bell had sounded I’d failed to switch off the cooker before leaving the kitchen.
The outcome? Our entire runner bean crop, along with those Goldenlay trucks, burnt to a cinder.
*
Early in 1983 we received a letter from an ex-Goldenlay site-manager. He’d read about the dim view we took of the company and wanted to dish the dirt. This was interesting!
Violet and I made an appointment to visit our whistleblower (we’ll call him Mr X) wondering what we might learn straight from the horse’s mouth. We decided we’d record the interview, and perhaps come up with something worth sending to the Queen.
Inside information
On a raw March day, more like winter than spring, we set off to visit our whistle-blower, complete with tape recorder. We found his first floor flat, reached via an outside staircase and above a row of small shops, part of a 1960s development.
Mr X welcomed us warmly and we chatted for a few minutes over a cup of coffee before getting down to the serious business. He’d already agreed to allow us to record his reminiscences and soon we had the tape running.
Mr X told us that one of his legacies was a recurring respiratory disorder brought on, he claimed, by the nature of the work. Since asthma and bronchitis are acknowledged as occupational hazards in the pig and poultry industries worldwide, we had no reason to think he was exaggerating (1).
We heard how common prolapses are among battery hens, and remembered the words of Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz: ‘For a person who knows something about animals it is truly heart-rending to watch how a chicken tries again and again to crawl beneath her fellow-cagemates, to search there in vain for cover. Under these circumstances hens will undoubtedly hold back their eggs for as long as possible. Their instinctive reluctance to lay eggs amidst the crowd of her cagemates is certainly as great as the one of civilized people to defecate in an analogous situation.’
Maybe this holding back of eggs accounts for the prolapses? It could be due to all manner of other things too – poor muscle tone from lack of exercise, or the unnatural number of eggs now expected from the laying hen (double that of pre-war hens) to name just two. Whatever the reason, we knew that when part of the oviduct protrudes, red and glistening, other hens will peck at it, the taste of blood often marking the start of injuries leading to death. Mr X explained that prolapses aren’t readily noticed in the congested cages, amid the general gloom.
We asked him about veterinary care and he stressed that only if a whole flock were threatened, as when infectious bronchitis strikes, would the (expensive) poultry vet be called in. Then, antibiotics as mass medication in the feed or water would be prescribed. Non-contagious diseases and injuries were routinely ignored.
Mr X told us that however well the extractor fans worked, still
the air in the sheds was heavily contaminated with particles of feathers, grain, mites and general dust. When alarmed, hens attempted to flap their wings, hitting each other and the sides of the cages, raising clouds of contaminants. All this convinced us that our ‘February 4th Statement’ was accurate. Even if the will to inspect battery hens properly were present, no worker could endure being in the polluted environment of a battery shed for more than short spells.
Mr X claimed the stocking density recommended in MAFF Codes was frequently exceeded on Goldenlay farms, and that water was sometimes withheld for periods exceeding 24 hours. The Code states: ‘When birds are induced to moult it may be necessary to withhold food and water for short periods; but in no case should food or water be withheld for more than 24 hours.’
Back in the car we wondered why, as site manager, Mr X hadn’t insisted on better conditions for the hens. But maybe he had tried his best, while knowing his job would be on the line if he rocked the boat. In any event, we were convinced of the authenticity of his account. Everything he’d told us tied up with what we already knew.
*
Mr X was happy to have his identity revealed to the Queen, so he was named in our letter that accompanied the tape. On April 18th we posted the recording, thinking what a far cry was Buckingham Palace from our informant’s bleak little flat. Again, we begged the Queen to rescind her Royal Warrant to Goldenlay, stressing the illegality, as we saw it, of the system. And we issued a Press Release, to coincide with the posting of the letter.
*
On January 20th 1983 The Yorkshire Post reported our ‘partial victory’: ‘A pressure group opposed to battery farming claimed partial victory over one of Britain’s biggest battery-egg producers yesterday. Chickens’ Lib has been told by the Lord Chamberlain’s office that the Royal Household is to buy more free-range eggs – and so fewer battery eggs supplied by the Wakefield-based Goldenlay company. The group learned of the decision from the Secretary of the Royal Household’s Warrants Committee, Mr John Titman…Mrs Clare Druce, of Wakefield, a co-founder of Chickens’ Lib, said last night: “We are very pleased with this decision and regard it as a partial victory, though it’s a pity that it has not been decided to stop buying battery eggs for the Queen’s Household.” ’ In other words, battery eggs were still on the menu for those outside the royal circle.