Monday 10th September 2001
Novel gives moving account of crisis
|  | Told in the form of a diary, the novel gives a child's view of the crisis |
| A Devon author has written a children's book about the foot-and-mouth crisis. "Out of the Ashes" gives a child's view of the impact of the disease.
The award winning children's writer, Michael Morpurgo, who lives in Iddesleigh, was inspired to write "Out of the Ashes" after seeing some of the horrific scenes of animals being slaughtered in Devon.
"I was looking out of my window and I saw three fires burning on the hillside. I love this countryside and I think of it as a kind of paradise. I suddenly thought at that moment that this paradise is being turned into some kind of hell," said Mr Morpurgo.
 | Author Michael Morpurgo was deeply moved by the foot-and-mouth crisis |
"I thought I've got to write about this and put something down on paper. I saw a community traumatised and it was as close as I've ever been to a war situation."
The book tells the story of Becky Morley. Her family are farmers who are helplessly engulfed in the foot-and-mouth crisis as it ravages the countryside and finally reaches their farm.
Told in diary form, the voice of Becky is disarmingly frank and moving as she tells first of the farm tragedy and then the effect the disease and subsequent slaughters have on the whole family. Every event in the book is said to be based on a real life story.
Anthony Gibson, regional director of the National Farmers Union said:
"At the time of writing more than 3 million animals have been slaughtered on 7,900 farms. What "Out of the Ashes" does supremely well is to bring home just what those impersonal statistics mean to real people, with real animals on real farms."
Fifty pence from every copy sold will be donated to support the "Farmers in Crisis" fund.
Michael Morpurgo's book is currently
being serialised on BBC Radio Devon's new rural affairs programme Country Matters on
Monday evenings at 7.00pm. |
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