Silence at Ramscliffe

 Photographs by Chris Chapman, words by James Crowden.

For many the slaughter of healthy farm animals during the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001, as part of a government sanctioned contiguous cull, was nothing short of genocide. True, the disease was virulent and widespread, but none of the lessons of the earlier 1967-68 outbreak had been learnt. In the words of Professor Fred Brown, the cull was "barbaric conduct" and "a disgrace to humanity."

Commissioned by Devon County Council through Beaford Arts to make a record of Foot and Mouth Disease and its effect on the rural community, photographer Chris Chapman centred his story on the study of a contiguous farm in the parish of Beaford, North Devon. Later he invited the poet James Crowden to accompany him on a tour of the farm and the surrounding region, hoping to share with him the pain he had witnessed. This extraordinary result, from both poet and photographer, neither minces its words nor flinches from the reality. 

"I could not let this story be forgotten. It had such a marked affect on our lives and I hope in some small way it will help to heal the wounds of those who experienced its horror". 
Chris Chapman

"Nothing prepared me for Foot and Mouth. Image and reality became inextricably linked. To some it was like the Killing Fields of Cambodia".

James Crowden  

"A suitably provocative collection of words and pictures, to remind us just how the governments' appalling and callous handling of the foot and mouth crisis undermined all the fundamentals of good farming and good husbandry. It may be the story of one farm in Devon, but it serves as a brilliant warning, nationally and even globally, of how man's chilling disassociation from the species that feed him is, frighteningly, almost complete." 
 Hugh Fearnley - Whittingstall 

 click to view poetry extracts

The Bardwell Press Oxford - ISBN-13: 978-0954868338 
Bardwell Press is a small independent press that designed the well known photographic books by James Ravilious.