Ticking time bomb

As a young child I lived next door to a farm. That is to say, at the bottom of my garden there was a large five-bar gate. The other side of the gate contained a beautiful meadow with tall swaying grasses and in the Summer the field turned bright yellow with buttercups . Most of the time, I would ask for permission to climb over the gate and walk in the field ... but sometimes adventure pulled at my pores and I would climb over the wooden beams of the gate and jump down into the cool of the meadow grasses without first thinking to ask if it would be all right.

A herd of black and white Fresian cows slowly munched their way around the field ... I would walk up to one of them and pull out a handful of grass and hold it under her large dripping wet nose and feel her long, rough tongue scoop the offering out of my little fingers. Then I would lightly rub my palm over the length of her face and feel the vibration of her soft, bellowing 'moo' tingle all the way up my arm. Cows tails would slowly wave from side-to-side and occasionally flick across their backs swishing flies away. Every so often one would urinate or defecate which would crash out like a fireman's hose all hot, watery and steamy ... before long it would dry into a firm round cow pat in the heat of the Summer sun.

For some strange reason the meadow was always lush with tall grasses and flowers and no matter how much mooing and chewing the cows did it would always remain the same.

There were certain things that I was told to always remember when standing near to cows (although I shouldn't really have been in a field on my own in the middle of a herd of cows). My father gave me a magic word to say (a just in case what to do if I should at some point in my life ever be confronted with a herd of cows) ... I have to confess that I practised the word so that I would be prepared and then I felt safe. The word, one which farmers in the vicinity appeared to use was "gercha" a short word meaning 'go on with you.' On the times that I used it - it worked quite effectively ... the cows would turn and go in the opposite direction.

I felt a tremendous sadness when cows suddenly were struck down with BSE or bovine spongiform encephalopathy ... bad enough when it occurred naturally in an old animal but not when it was found in young healthy beasts. The most frightening aspect of BSE in younger animals was the fact that it was alleged that it was caused by a prion and prions it is said are indestructible.

Little note added one day after posting: for those of you who may be interested ... it was found that prions which allegedly were found in certain animal foods adhered themselves to proteins within animals that had eaten the food, especially cows but also there have been findings in other animals as well. The prion connects to the protein which is then changed forever so when a cell splits and multiplies it is the new version (protein + prion) that is created. This potentially has the ability to travel throughout the body in every area where protein cells are found. In cattle this led to 'BSE' or 'Mad Cow Disease.' It was found that if a person then ingested the meat containing these prions they could develop 'CJD' the human variation. The ingested prion can affect both the brain and the body and usually leads to death.

In certain instances it is alleged that it has taken a very short space of time from ingestion of contaminated meat and the onset of the 'disease.' It has often affected people around the age of twenty but scientists alledge that it may be lying dormant in many people and could suddenly take hold of anyone who may, at some time during their life have eaten contaminated meat.