In a field in Wanborough yesterday morning, Bill and Bridget Biddell were looking at their livestock. Eighty head of naturally reared, pedigree Sussex cattle were chewing the grass of Hampton Estate Farm, which sprawls over the Surrey countryside to within 3km (1.8 miles) of the culling fields at the centre of the latest foot-and-mouth outbreak.

“We just look at them, hope that they are eating and chewing their cud,” Mrs Biddell said. “We will keep checking them and hoping that there will be no unnecessary culling like there was last time.” Mrs Biddell was supposed to be hosting a fête in her garden for 500 people, in aid of a local charity. The actress Penelope Keith had been due to attend. Then on Thursday in a field down the lane Derrick Pride, a farmer, noted symptoms of foot-and-mouth, and, for the moment in this corner of Surrey that is part-agricultural, part-surburbia, the good life was put on hold.

Mr Pride, who built up the farm with his wife Sheila over 20 years and now runs it with his son Roger, spoke publicly for the first time yesterday about his heartbreak over the discovery of the infection.

“It is a real shock. I’m devastated,” he said adding that his family and villagers had rallied around him in support. Mr Pride said he could not understand how the infection spread, as his farm was “quite isolated”, but insisted he was blameless.

“It is nothing to do with us. It is not our fault. It is something beyond our control. We try to keep a clean farm. We do everything by the book.”

After the cull of Mr Pride’s cattle, there was another cull of 19 animals: pigs, sheep and goats belonging to a local family, who considered many of them pets.

The father, who did not want to be named and who described himself as a hobby farmer, told The Times that he did not know whether they had been carrying foot-and-mouth. “My wife had a goat and my daughter had pet angora goats — they were hand-reared. We had pet pigs too. They were all culled as a precautionary measure.”

The hobby farmer came back to his empty, disinfected fields yesterday. He had to wear a boiler suit. He was disinfected as he went in and as he walked out. His suit was removed and disposed of, then he drove home and committed all his clothing to a 60-degree wash, and stepped in the shower.

Rising property prices have forced out many of the farmers who once worked the land in this part of Surrey. Many of the farms that remain rely on organic techniques, farm shops and farmers’ markets to stay in business.

John and Georgina Emerson, whose Hunt Hill Farm lies half a mile from the site of the outbreak, feared not only for their living cattle but also for the fate of those already slaughtered. “It’s all fresh,” Mr Emerson said. “Someone said you will just have to wait 21 days, but we can’t freeze it. If we sell it after 21 days it wouldn’t be fresh. We are trying to get information from Defra but we haven’t had any.”

Mrs Biddell said: “It’s been frightening. We are doing everything we can think of, but we heard nothing yesterday from Defra and we couldn’t get through on the hotline.”

The outbreak

— Livestock movements banned

— Export of live animals halted

— Protection zones have been set up around infected farmland, although traffic on the A3 will not be subject to disinfection

— Zones include laboratories suspected as source of infection

2,000

confirmed cases in 2001

7m

animals slaughtered

£8bn

the estimated cost of the outbreak

11 months

before country was declared free of infection

— Merial employs 5,000 staff and generates $2.2 billion revenue a year through the sale of vaccines and veterinary products

— Pirbright is its biggest manufacturing base for foot-and-mouth vaccines

— The facility has supplied six million doses of the vaccine to Turkey in the past two years

— Northern Ireland’s ports and airports have installed disinfectant mats after ministers held an emergency meeting

— No restrictions at present on the movement of livestock within Northern Ireland and across the Irish border

— Compensation levels for farmers whose animals are culled will depend on identifying the source of the disease

— If the outbreak came from research installations at Pirbright, Surrey, farmers could take legal action to try to recover the money lost

— It has often proved difficult to pinpoint and prove the source and farmers have had to rely on government compensation

— The Pride family, whose farm is at the centre of the outbreak, with two confirmed cases, should be able to claim compensation as long as the infection is not found to be their fault

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