LAST Friday (June 15), I attended a protest meeting about the foot and mouth disease crisis, not because I am a farmer's wife, or involved in animal rights -- I'm just a housewife.

Twenty-eight years ago I was a townie with little experience of the country, but over the years, I've walked my dogs over surrounding farmland, got to know the farmers and got to know the beautiful part of the country I'm so lucky to live in.

My favourite hymn springs to mind . . . "And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England's mountains green, and was the Holy Lamb of God in England's pleasant pastures seen . . . " and the very end of the hymn, "in England's green and pleasant land."

Not any more.

There are precious few lambs to be seen and nothing pleasant about the things that are happening.

I am appalled and sickened by what I've seen and heard over the last few months. What worries me is that the rest of the country seems blissfully unaware of the scale of this outbreak.

Many, many people feel the same. I'm writing to say that foot and mouth is alive and well, and we're living with it.

If, like me, you have grave concerns over how it's been handled, and the dreadful slaughter of our livestock, you've got to make yourself heard.

Some will say that the farmers are getting compensation, but nothing can compensate for the generations of farmers who have built up bloodlines and pedigrees, only to watch them be wiped out in a matter of hours.

It goes beyond the farmers, touching all of us in the community in some way, shape or form -- right down to the housewife like myself, who will eventually be forced to buy foreign produce because our own British supplies will have been depleted.

The heart of our country is being ripped out and a way of life probably changed forever.

We've got to try and stop it, and speak out now.

SHIRLEY STOCKS, Wellhouse Road, Barnoldswick.