"A lot of the legislation coming in from Brussels is
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over the top. and we know that the Continentals are not abiding by it."
EDDIE HARPER, RHA.
windscreens and bodywork damage. Drivers have been put in hospital; I've been put in hospital," says Gordon Gilder. Almost every livestock haulier you talk to has suffered to a greater or lesser extent.
Despite the obvious hardships in this longsuffering sector, there is an underlying optimism among the survivors. That positive spirit has paid off: on 14 July hauliers and farmers learnt that British beef exports to Europe would resume. In this upbeat vein there is the hope that violence from activists will recede and that the entire picture might change for the better.
This is not a view shared by everyone: 'I've packed up. That's how difficult it is," says former Cambridgeshire pig haulier Michael Speechley. In i998 profits from KJ Speechley & Sons, the company he ran with his brother, were down 20% on 1997. In the first three months of 1999 they were down again year on year. "The pig industry is bad," he says. "Diesel [duty l is a major factor, plus when customers are losing Z15-2o a pig how can you go to them and ask for more money?"
Three years ago, animal rights activists firebombed the premises. 'I'm only 45 now and my brother's 47," Speechley says. "We looked at each other then and said 'should we pack up? If this is the industry we're in, this is wonderful'."
Such defiant irony was not enough in the end. They carried on but a variety of pressures told on the business. "Rules and regulations were coming in thick and fast and we've got a nightmare," he explains. "We are lorry drivers, not professional form-fillers. And the margins were still rubbish. The sad thing is, I've been doing this all my life and I thought it would see me out, to be honest."
Speechley and his brother got planning permission to build houses on their land and an offer from a developer to do just that. By then, even in the third generation of a family business, it had become an easy decision to 'make. On 30 April the company's trucks were sold. The Monday after, Speechley went to the now-empty premises. "It was very strange," he recalls. "We came up, and looking up the yard I knew there'd never be anything standing there again. All I ever wanted to do was this job."