It was September 1981, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. I was 19, walking back to my bedsit, I took a shortcut home from town through the cattle market, something I had done many times before, typical teenager not really noticing what was going on around me, or so I thought.
As I stared at the pebbled pathway beneath my feet, I heard a long, tortured cry of pain that startled me, I remember looking up just in time to see a burly bloke with a young calf in a headlock so another bloke could pierce a hole in the calf’s ear and burn a number on the poor creature’s back, I then watched as they proceeded to poke the calf with an electrified rod and drag him by his bleeding ears in order to get him in the lorry. I will never forget the cry from that baby, I will never forget the smell of burning flesh or the blood dripping to the floor as I stood and watched them repeat this with another half dozen calves, oblivious to the pain and suffering of the poor creatures. I walked away without saying or doing anything.
I will never forget the anger and pain I felt at what I had witnessed, the look in the saucer eyes of that little baby being tortured has stayed with me for 30 years. I will always regret not saying something, anything. From that day, I was empowered to do something, I never ate a dead animal again and a week later I stopped consuming all animal products – I became vegan. I discovered the truth about factory farming and all other forms of animal abuse and began my lifelong fight for the animals. Living in a world of cruelty breaks my heart every day, every time I look into the eyes of another neglected, tortured, beaten soul, I wish they could understand that there are lots of us doing all we can to help, and that one day they will all be free from the shackles of human slavery and torture.