Recently my boss handed me a article from a magazine. The article related to the need for a written risk assessment for a farm business. This reminded me of a run-in I had with a Council jobs worth at the Countryside Festival a few years ago. We were asked to put together an agricultural display to help visitors attending the festival gain more understanding of the activities that take place rurally.
Our display included Hebridean sheep, Highland cattle, and our Belted Galloway bull, Tavish. We erected 2 gazebos with various display boards, banners, breed society merchandise and marketing material. All in all I thought it looked great! The event ran for 3 days with the first day being solely for school children, and there were thousands of them.
On the morning of the day we had an inspection from the Council. The woman from the council first said we needed to put up signs asking the public not to touch the animals. We also had to provided hand washing facilities with sign-age stating “now wash your hands” really? She then disappeared only to return a few minutes later telling us to put up an another outer barrier to keep the public back from touching the stock. So a hastily we erected a 2 rail wooden fence round the cattle and a rope barrier round the sheep.
All day we were rushed off our feet fielding questions from quizzical and enthusiastic children. That evening the event was to host an open air concert with Run-rig being the headlining act. During the afternoon the band started having a sound check. The base player of the band starting tuning his equipment. Our bull Tavish took this low thumping sound as that of another bull and started making his own low sound drone, he began to get agitated and started pushing at the fence. As bulls do, he put his head on the floor rubbing back and forward, digging holes with his feet throwing straw and soil over his back. Trying not to look to worried I climbed on the hurdle to discourage him from moving his pen towards the sound. He became more vocal about his intentions to fight with what he believed to be another bull across the road. He decided he would not lift his tail and then smear what is expelled from that end of his body round his bum and tail. Still trying to keep calm and from my position of height I had the best view as to what was about to unfold. Each time he roared he would increase his volume and raise his head to the sky, each time the children took a step back. Then like a scene from a sniper movie everything slipped into slow motion. Opposite from where I was perched I noticed a well dressed school teacher standing on his own a little bit away from two little boys. Tavish continued increasing his roaring till he reached a deafening climax with his head raised high, he then powerfully flicked his very clarty tail and in slow motion I saw an arc of slurry fan out over the hurdles, past the wooden fence and begin to impact those closest; my eye caught site of a large marshmallow sized projectile at the outer reaches of the arc. This was spotted by one of the little boys and we both followed it as it headed towards the well dressed teacher. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I suspect it was “step bac…” the marshmallow never touched his lips, as it shot into his open mouth! Again, a scene from the sniper film; the little laddie who watched this dropped to his knees like he had been shot and then burst out laughing as tears began to roll down his cheeks. The teacher instantly began to gag, spit and fish out pieces of slurry with his fingers. By this time the other wee boy had caught on and both lads where rendered incapable as they rolled around in hysterics. Things settled down, I caught the eye of the teacher and as I held back, as best as I could, my own laughter and tears, I could not resist pointing towards the sign, “now wash your hands.”