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   CLUB SANDWICH 76

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AND IN THE GREEN CORNER

British writer Andrew Martin is a meat-eater whose journalistic endeavours have transformed his ideas about vegetarianism ... and may be about to transform his diet too

"You can probably see why I feel that fate is trying to tell me something. Some of my best friends are vegetarians, and they're not the pallid loonies I used to take the mickey out of."

            I am a freelance journalist, and when people at parties ask me what I write about I say "anything", at which point they lose interest. Lately, though, my commissions have been pushing me in a particular direction.
            This started last Christmas when I happened to write an article for The Independent about turkey farming. I interviewed a charming countryman who ate turkey eggs for breakfast on place mats decorated with turkeys whilst reading various magazines about turkeys. He had paintings of turkeys on his wall, and hundreds of ornamental turkeys about his house.
            He professed to have a soft spot for these strange, lumbering creatures, but had a funny way of showing it, for his business involved killing them in large numbers. He allowed me to witness the process, or at least part of it.
            The most villainous-looking man that I have ever seen (with the possible exception of Michael Portillo) was slitting stunned birds' throats as they swung past him on hooks. There was no dramatic gush of blood - about which this red faced, grunting individual looked rather ashamed - merely a feeble dribble from each victim.
            At the end of the visit my genial host offered me a large frozen turkey, something to remember him by, as it were. As he proffered the box I faced a dilemma. Should I accept the bird, thereby compromising my journalistic integrity? Or should I accept it and save twenty quid (because I've always eaten a turkey at Christmas). I thought hard, and reached a conclusion: "Thanks very much," I said, "this looks delicious."
            But as I carried on researching the piece, my guilt at taking the turkey increased. I had begun to find out - from some mild-mannered animal welfarists, who were mainly vegetarian - more about what intensively-reared turkeys go through. The males, for example, are routinely masturbated in the course of breeding programmes. The attitude of the bluff blokes who did this seemed to me astonishing. "Masturbating turkeys?", they'd say, "what's weird about that?"
            I decided that I would give my turkey away. Charities at Christmas would be clamouring for a free bird, I reasoned.
            "A turkey?", laughed the woman who worked for Crisis At Christmas, "well, it's a very kind thought, but we've got a stack of food, thanks." So I tried my local vicar -just the fellow to pass it on to some local Bob Cratchitt. I left a message on the vicarly answer-phone - 'which was not returned. I left another message - which was not returned. Drastic situations call for drastic measures: I went to church. "Ah, so you're the frozen turkey man?", said the vicar as I accosted him after the service. He gave me a look expressive of earnest solicitation. Or so he thought, but in fact his expression said: "You are a lunatic are you not?" He was no help.
            Christmas came, and I ate another turkey at my father's house. I didn't much enjoy it. The performance of the turkey killer had put me off, as had my futile attempt to offload my frozen gift, which eventually I threw away.
            My article on turkeys was quite a success, though, and it was followed by the offer of a piece about badgers. Badgers have been killed en masse for twenty years by the Ministry of Agriculture, which believes that they transmit tuberculosis to cattle. Well, the ministry certainly used to think that, and it'd look pretty stupid if it stopped killing badgers now. (Actually, it wouldn't look stupid at all, but that's another story.)
            In the course of this, I met Eunice Overend, who is known as "the badger lady" for reasons that become obvious when you visit her Wiltshire caravan. She introduced me to one of her charges. As he playfully leapt at my crotch with razor-teeth flashing, Eunice explained that the stick she was holding - which I had taken for an innocent walking stick - was actually an insurance policy against Billy getting a bit stroppy, which he did "quite often". Hearing this I ran, calmly but at a speed which was possibly record breaking, for the safety of Eunice's caravan.
            Nonetheless, I decided that I liked the badgers, and I liked their human protectors, most of whom were vegetarian.
            Later in the year, I interviewed Vicki Moore who is currently recovering from a somewhat one-sided argument with a Spanish bull named Argentine She showed me pictures of him. "They'd decided he was too aggressive for bullfights," she explained, affectionately.
            When Vicki Moore was attacked by Argentino she was protesting against bull baiting at a Spanish fiesta. Her campaigns against these animal abusing fiestas strike me as a) probably futile, and b) incredibly noble. She is a vegetarian.
            The other day, another editor called me. "I believe you're an expert in animal rights", she said. "That's right," I said (well, why the hell not?). She suggested an article about the well-being of Britain's ostriches.
            You can probably see why, what with one thing and another, I feel that fate is trying to tell me something. Some of my best friends are vegetarians, and they're not the pallid loonies I used to take the mickey out of (well, not all of them are). I recently found out that my dad's oldest friend - the absolute epitome of northern solidity - is a vegetarian.
            So what I'm thinking is this: maybe I could forego turkey this Christmas, and make a new year's resolution about meat eating. I haven't firmly decided yet. But it would certainly give my family something to talk about at a time of year -which is, let's face it, always a conversational low point.


INSPIRATION

SEEKING OUT THE SPARK BEHIND THE SONG

            "See what it's come to, I'm just your mistress and maid" from the album Of The Ground, February 1993
            Mistress And Maid,
painted by Jan Vermeer 1667-68

Club Sandwich 76
            Painting (right) and detail (left) reproduced courtesy of The Frick Collection, New York