I grew up in the UK, in an idyllic Hampshire village called Selborne. I went vegetarian at the age of 13 after seeing Juliet Gellatley's 'Scream' campaign, much to my parents' dismay. My school projects and presentations were always on animal rights topics such as the horrors of vivisection and cosmetic testing. At the age of 19 however my life took a very different turn when I emigrated to New Zealand. My partner at the time had grown up on dairy farms and we got a live-in job on a large operation with two dairy herds. All of a sudden, I found myself milking cows for a living.
I knew nothing about the industry and at first thought milking cows was a wonderful, wholesome activity. New Zealand dairy cows are all pasture fed, they live permanently outdoors in the fields and I loved being out in the fresh air for much of the day. I also took pride in the notion I was helping to 'nourish the country', even though I had been lactose intolerant my whole life and could never drink a drop of fresh milk myself. As the years passed however and I became more entrenched in the industry, I became more and more disillusioned with the heartless greed and cruel practices, particularly during calving season. I would sob uncontrollably every Thursday and Sunday, when dozens of beautiful innocent four-day old calves got thrown into a truck and taken to slaughter, just because they were male, or the 'wrong' breed or colour. Unfortunately my protests were not taken seriously. The other farmers would laugh at me, or tell me to 'harden up', 'where there's life, there's death' and other 'circle of life' cliches. It took me 18 years to finally get out of the industry. While I was relieved, even then I didn't fully realise what I had been a part of.
It was August 7th, 2017 when I went vegan. I had been out of the farming industry for four years and while I had toyed with the idea of becoming vegan rather than vegetarian, I didn't fully understand what it meant. I thought of it as simply a diet, rather than a lifestyle or ethical belief. Hence I had always ruled it out as too extreme and restrictive. On this day however, I clicked unsuspectingly into a Facebook post from a vegan friend, asking for signatures on a petition to ban pig farrowing crates in New Zealand. I couldn't believe this was happening in my own country and was absolutely horrified. I went vegan on the spot, vowing I would never willingly contribute to animal exploitation again.
When it came out in a vegan Facebook group a couple of months later that I had once been a dairy farmer, members immediately urged me to use my voice and insight to share the truth of the industry. Amazingly throughout all the years I worked on dairy farms, I never made the connection that cow's milk was meant for baby calves, not humans and that I had been, in effect, stealing from them. When I realised the extent and cruelty of everything I had been part of; the kidnapping and killing of innocent babies, the grief of their mothers, exploiting their bodies and reproductive systems and robbing them of nourishment meant for their babies... It hit me like a hammer and was very hard to live with. I had seen Earthling Ed and Joey Carbstrong speaking and doing outreach and I thought to myself, 'If they can put themselves out there time after time and share the truth about the industry without even being a part of it, how can I stay silent with everything I know?' I knew I had to speak out and so I recorded a video for SAFE, which was terrifying and as expected I received death threats and graphic threats of violence from those in the industry. Having had a media background for many years and living with a chronic illness, I instead decided to use writing as my form of activism.
I had been bedridden for seven months when I saw a small ad on Facebook from an organisation I hadn't heard of before, called Vegan FTA. They were looking for volunteer writers and I couldn't believe it when I saw they had 140,000 followers. I jumped at the chance to be able to share as much as I could about the dairy and beef industries with such a large audience and the rest, as they say, is history. I have also since written for Surge, Plant Based News, Switch for Good, Free From Harm and many more organisations but my heart is with Vegan FTA. I came on board in March 2018, my husband Gareth also joined the team at the end of 2019 and now we devote ourselves full time to helping create a more vegan world.
At the time of writing, Vegan FTA now has over 1.5 million followers. We are a positive activism hub with two main focuses - one, to create more vegans and two, to encourage those who are already vegan to be more active in the movement. We strongly believe that each and every one of us can make a difference in some way. If I can be an effective voice for the animals while being frequently house and bedbound, anyone can!
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