Vocal Voices

Whilst I was having my eyes looked at today, Mick got talking to a woman he vaguely recognised, in the reception area. It turned out she also used to use the same log supplier, D, years ago, up on Coopers Hill, where they do the cheese rolling.

"Wasn't it terrible about D?" she said. Mick didn't know what she meant, but apparently a year or so back the poor man was trampled to death by his own cows He went up the hill to his cowshed one morning, to supervise a calving, and when he didn't come home for his lunch his wife and son went looking for him, and found him dead

A terrible shame, he was a nice man.

Gosh, that's a nasty way to go. Poor man.

Awful way to go.

You hear about tractors over here, turning over, killing the driver. Most of them in their 70's and on a steep hill.

Farming has ever been a hard life. Bad way to go though.

Feel for his family.

I used to have to cross a field to bring the horses in.

Most of the year it was empty but there were times when the farmer was bringing on 12 to 15 bullocks for market.

They were not aggressive or hostile, more like curious. They would come up and crowd you and nudge you in a friendly sort of way, but you could shoo them off. However, if you slipped and fell I can imagine that their curiosity might lead to you being trampled.

Poor man, and he would have been aware!

Yes, cows can be dangerous beasts. Years ago, when I worked in Beaminster, there were reports of an escaped cow who'd gone "feral" and was hiding out in the local woods around Mapperton.
The public were advised on no account to enter those woods ....