Workers on the Conveyor Belt of Death

They work 14-hour stretches, shooting and disposing of 10,000 animals a day. Most can stomach no more than one nine-day tour of duty.

'You don't let yourself think or you crack up. You go back to the hotel and talk about telly, your favourite food, anything to distract you.'

'Some of the ewes were heavily pregnant, the odd one or two lambed when they were shot. We had to pull the lambs out and take them to be injected. If I thought about it I'd go loopy.'

The vets injected 1,500 lambs a day. The slaughtermen kill rare breeds and pets. One was valued at £60,000. 'We've killed umpteen Herdwicks; they're a beautiful breed. We were shooting a century's hard work breeding; it's like smashing up rare antiques. The children's pets were priceless.'

A member of a mobile death squad in Cumbria: 'The silence gets me. I can't imagine what it means for them to wake up the next day at 5am for milking and realise they have no more animals.'

Source: The Daily Telegraph, April 28, 2001