Tourists come to the rescue

Even those unaffected by the cull were stuck with their livestock on the farm and were off-limits to tourists.

John Morley’s livestock was shot in a contiguous cull in April 2001.

“It was early April, Easter weekend. It had come from nowhere to Ruswarp. The Army was in full swing with the cull and you couldn’t argue your case.

“I got myself into trouble at the time. I threw an Environment Agency man’s camera into the slurry lagoon and I think I tried to lock him in a car boot.

“I’d never been in trouble. I was like a lost soul. I lost a couple of good friends who shot themselves. I understand now that people like the Army were following orders but those who made the decisions will never know the damage they have done to others.

“I loved what I did. We had an excellent herd of pedigree Holsteins. I was milking three times a day – at 6am, 2pm and 10pm – and I had built up a large herd of cows through breeding work. Farming, and particularly dairy farming, was the only thing I knew how to do.

“I restocked with Holsteins with a smaller number on the first day I was allowed to by law on November 5, but when I started again I guess my spirit had gone. It was as though I didn’t even know how to farm again.

“It’s hard to explain and strange but I was struggling to even go and get the cows in. I was on massive doses of whatever the doctor gave me that first year back.”

It was the combination of his family and his family doctor that broke the spell John.

“Sue, my wife, told me I needed to sort myself out and she was right. She, more than anyone else, is the one who has got me through. My children – Gemma, Daniel and Cheryl – were all fantastic. I believe to this day that they got together when they saw me in a bad way and more or less said ‘watch us, dad’.

“My doctor hit the nail on the head though. He used to say ‘there’s no way you’re depressed, you’re just heartbroken’. I’ve held on to that advice. Everyone has lost someone or something, and sometimes in life you can’t have the things you want the most.

“The biggest thing is accepting that. You’ve got to somehow try to be strong.”

He got going again with cows but realised that dairy farming was no longer his vocation. “We had restocked by buying from my neighbour and the hardest thing was going to my friend and his dad to tell them we were selling up. But because he’s such a close friend, he already knew what I was going to say. I explained it wasn’t anything to do with the quality of his cattle.

“He stunned me by announcing that if I was beat, then he was too. We both packed in and sold all of our cows at the same time up in Carlisle.”

The other person John felt for at this time was his father, Bryan. Like many farmers, John had a fear of appearing a failure in the eyes of the older generation by not continuing the business in same way. It weighed heavily on his shoulders, but he need not have worried.

“My dad was great, as was my mum. He just said he didn’t blame me for coming out of cows at all and that I had made the right decision. His backing, and those words, meant the world to me.”

John and Sue had run a farmhouse bed-and-breakfast establishment prior to the epidemic breaking out.

And one thing that was going for them was their location on a main road by the edge of the moors and within easy striking distance of an attractive coastal resort.

So they decided to expand on the B&B with a restaurant and, today, Cross Butts Stable Restaurant & Hotel is the first tourist establishment you see as you come into Whitby off the A171 moors road.

They have a variety of function rooms, nine bedrooms, each with distinctive features, and are licensed for weddings.

“We’re where town meets the country. Whitby is wonderful because it hasn’t been wasted yet like a lot of other places. Anyone who stays with us is able to be somewhere beautiful in the country in just 10 minutes. Lovely places like Rosedale, Farndale or Staithes and Runswick Bay are just a few of the many outlying villages and areas – and, of course, there’s the abbey.”

The torment of a decade ago will never be forgotten, but he is proud of what he and his family – and his extended family, the people who work with him – have achieved.

“I’m not stupid and I’m not daft. I understand that even though I adored every single day of my life as a dairy farmer.

“I have got myself into a much stronger position now. I have been able to employ all of my three children, which I would never have had a hope in hell of doing as a farmer.

“It’s the ‘old school’ way that every farmer used to have, that his family would stay with him. I’ve achieved that in a different way.”

Tourism in Yorkshire has grown by more than 50 per cent since the end of foot-and-mouth disease.

The total annual tourist spend here is about £7bn and about 250,000 work in the industry. It’s a far more significant employer in rural areas than farming.