Killed by fireworks: gorgeous foal spooked into a tragic, painful death - is it time to ban the general sale of fireworks?
“Our hearts are well and truly broken; I am lost for words, and find myself constantly choking on the lump in my throat.”
This newsletter has been paused for a while, whilst I have been thinking about how to improve it. How to ensure any time you spend reading my thoughts is worthwhile, and not just another spammy email from yet another outlet desperate for clicks. I hope you know by now that I prefer to write meaningfully and impactfully about the things that I care about, and hope you care about, too. Your time is precious, it is not for me to waste it.
Now, perhaps I was waiting for a prompt; a reason; something to spur me back into newsletter-writing action for you, The Yorkshire Post’s most loyal supporters. I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that the moment of motivation I needed has just landed in my inbox and through a cocktail of emotions I will share with you that correspondence which has crystallised an aching wish into something more akin to a cause I’ll fight for so long as God puts breath in my chest.
Fireworks. In particular, fireworks sold to the general public who, sometimes through no malintent, other times sheer incompetence and often moronic, thoughtless stupidity, end up causing a nuisance or worse.
On this occasion, it is worse. Much worse. A lady called Hannah Allwood who looks after a farm and her family up in Riddlesden wrote to me: “James, I am writing to you regarding an horrific incident we had to deal with on Monday morning.”
As you can imagine, as the editor of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper, notes like this come in to my inbox in scores. Very often, I find myself a very willing switchboard operator, helping those who take time to write to find someone more capable than I to deal with any queries. On this occasion, though, delegation was not an option, not least because the images you will see - which I make no apology for sharing, whilst offering a word of caution to anyone who would prefer not to see distressing content - moved me, as an animal lover, pretty much to tears.
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Hannah went on: “We live on a beautiful farm at the top of Riddlesden, on the moor. In short, someone was letting fireworks off over our fields which startled our foal so much he ran out of his field and into a machine. That machine fell on him, crushing him whilst impaling his chest and neck. I found him, barely alive but just so. I screamed for my husband to come and when he arrived he found some superhuman strength to lift the machine off King - the name of our foal - and I dragged him out from under it.”
“Blood was pouring from his wounds and whilst we tried to plug the holes and stem the bleeding with pressure until the emergency vet could arrive, sadly it was not enough to save him and as we held him, he slowly faded away.”
That night, the Hannah and her family lost three other animals to the shock and fear associated with fireworks exploding without warning above what is ordinarily a loving, safe place for livestock.
In her note to me, Hannah told me how she and her young children in particular cannot properly function. She told me the whole episode was, and I quote: ‘the most harrowing ordeal of my life.’ Having seen the photos and read her heartfelt words, I do not doubt the sincerity of that description. Not for a second. And so it has sharpened my resolve to urge policy-makers to think again about allowing the general public access to what are, to all intents and purposes, explosives.
I am not averse to a good old fashioned - and that is what they are … old fashioned - fireworks display. One that is safe, organised by qualified individuals who know what they are doing and properly advertised to offer forewarning. What I am averse to is any old (and often young) so-and-so scooping up a box of bangers and blasting them to smithereens whenever, wherever and however they see fit.
It is time fireworks were banned from general sale to the general public. Leaving them on sale puts animals at risk, vulnerable and elderly people on edge and, sadly, lives on the line.
RIP, King. A beautiful, loved, fledgling life cut short by something that should long ago have been out of the reach of those people who I don’t doubt will think twice about the consequences of letting off, indiscriminately, fireworks ever again.
James
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