My next visit deemed essential was to inspect and supervise the export of cheese powder - Julian Norton

The first early morning job of my first day back was to take the dog for a walk. Emmy has buckets full of energy and it’s usually a challenge to get her lead on before leaving the house.

She rushes with such speed. However, on that morning a lead wasn’t necessary. The street was so empty that she had more chance of being struck by an asteroid than being hit by an oncoming car.

At the surgery, a skeleton staff had been holding the fort. Of course, all routine procedures had been put on hold (for how long, I wondered? When restrictions are eventually lifted the amount of outstanding work will be a challenge to manage).

But there was still plenty to do. My first job of the morning was to head straight out. A dairy herd needed a fertility visit. Instinctively, this does not sound like crucial work – the checking of cows for pregnancy and helping those with poor fertility to become pregnant.

But this constitutes a vital part of the food chain and so falls into the category of essential work and made me a key worker. For once, dairy farmers are being appreciated as “vital”. As I headed out, I couldn’t help but raise a wry smile. Not long ago, when milk products were being driven in from Eastern Europe by the tanker-load, British dairy farming was apparently held in low esteem.

The tables have turned. The cows presented no coronavirus risk (although they can be affected by a different, bovine coronavirus. It doesn’t cause panic and is usually very mild) and the farmer stood a healthy but unsociable distance away as I palpated ovaries and scanned one cow after another.

Most of them were pregnant, ensuring a full lactation in due course. There were some calves to castrate and disbud too but this was impossible to do without close contact between vet and calf-holder, so had to be put off until safer times.

My next visit, also deemed essential by the powers that be, was to inspect and supervise the export of some cheese powder; it was destined for the opposite side of the world. I had to check the health provenance of the milk from which the cheese powder was derived, to make sure it wasn’t carrying diseases. It was hardly the cutting edge of clinical veterinary practice, but certification work like this is important to uphold food standards – a very important veterinary role but one that fewer and fewer vets are qualified to undertake.

I usually have a visit like this every week or so and they need to continue despite lockdown. On arrival, I did my best to maintain a safe distance, although the entry into the building – controlled by security key fob – could not be easily performed at broom’s length.

Needless to say, the dairy-based-powder export was hassle-free and signatures and stamps were applied to all the documents as required. On the drive back to the practice, I pondered the rationale behind this and there seemed to be some glaring paradoxes.

What I’d just done was not essential, far from it, but it was allowed as a means of keeping the economy moving. As I made my way up the empty high street in Boroughbridge, past the closed cafes and hairdresser, it seemed to me that there was a much more pressing economy which needed to be supported – one much closer to home than where my cheese powder was destined.

■ Catch up with Julian in The Yorkshire Vet which continues on Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 5.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor