The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2131 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

We had a quick dinner and I changed into a dress and jacket, collected my notes and the DVD and after asking the children to behave, I dashed off to Southampton university, where I eventually found the student’s union building. On entering I was told they’d rescheduled it to the university as the interest shown was greater than expected, the media had also shown an interest and as the BBC and ITV have offices in Southampton, film crews were anticipated. I was glad I hadn’t turned up in old jeans and sweatshirt.

I finally found the man I’d talked to who nearly shook my hand off, “It’s so good to meet you in the flesh, Dr Watts. You’re going to brighten up things no end.”

That sounded ominous. He’d told me I was the only woman speaker surely he didn’t mean that in a sexist sense? I hoped not. He told me they had a projector and a laptop to run it. He then took me to meet the rest of the speakers.

When I saw the chap from Friends of the Earth, I wondered why they needed me to brighten things up, he was carrot redhead, wearing a multicoloured striped jacket over bright green trousers. I was later to find out he knew his stuff and was one of their press spokesmen.

Sitting next to him was a young man who looked like a first year student, he was in jeans and tee shirt with a slogan calling to outlaw the cull. He was apparently a law student and claimed he would demonstrate how the cull was actually illegal. I waited with interest, though didn’t think he was likely to be right.

In a grey suit with a red tie was a member of the local labour party, who’d now come out against the cull as not being supported by science. He was a senior councillor on the local council and I hoped would stick to facts not one-upmanship.

The last was another student type, who’d just come from Somerset where he claimed he and others were obstructing the cull and was going to urge others to do the same. By the state of his clothing and his ‘countryside odour’ it looked as if he’d come straight from the fray.

I sat and waited at the back of the stage with the other speakers having given my DVD to one of the technicians who loaded it into the computer and checked it worked, it did. He gave me the thumbs up and went off to presumably run the technical element of the evening, lights, microphones and my disc.

The hall was filling up and getting quite noisy with the audience talking to each other and the excitement that there would be some fireworks before the event was over. I hoped to light a few rockets myself.

They weren’t sure where to put me in the list of speakers and as I was the only one with any teaching aids, I suggested that perhaps it would be best for me to go last. The chairman, the head of the Biological Sciences department, agreed. I hoped I’d stay awake until my turn.

The activist went first and he excited them by swearing frequently, talking about how they obstructed hunters and the police and protested outside the local NFU offices in Somerset (National Farmer’s Union).

Next came the politician. He spoke reasonably well once he’d got over the first few sentences, calling on the government to pay attention to the scientific evidence which we’d hear shortly from Dr Barnett of FoE and moi. He kept his talk short, took few questions, some off topic which the chairman rejected and then Dr Barnett in his stripy jacket and green pants took the floor. He was very good and he knew his stuff.

He gave loads of data against the government’s apparent scientific support, throwing out facts and figures so quickly, I could hardly take them in. Then he wrote some of them on a wipe clean board and it made the government’s case look very poor, although I knew that wouldn’t stop them shooting badgers because it was a political thing not a scientific one.

After him, the legal student was plain boring. I didn’t understand his case and I don’t think many of the audience did either so it was either so obscure a point of law that no one knew it except him, or he was talking through his backside. I wasn’t sure which.

I brought up the rear and was introduced to the audience as a leading mammal expert, survey coordinator, film-maker, author and university teacher. I added ecologist and field biologist–to which some wag in the front asked if they had biology in fields?

I replied, “The way money is being taken from university budgets, we might be teaching lots of subjects out of doors to save money, giving new meaning to someone asking which field one was in.” It got a laugh and a new wave of anticipation seemed to go across the audience.

I started with a clip from the Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graham’s anthropomorphic wild life tale of the riverbank. It showed badger as a wise if grumpy old chap who’d rather be sitting at his fireside smoking his pipe than helping the others. People laughed and clapped at this.

Next I showed them footage of badgers as they really are. Two males fighting, a pair mating, little ones at play and a mother feeding her young in the underground set. I showed pictures of sick badgers with TB, and slides of the TB bacillus taken from badgers and cows.

I agreed there was some evidence that badgers did act as vectors but how much that was a factor had yet to be determined as other wildlife such as rabbits, hares, deer and so on might also act as vectors but this hadn’t been quantified nor was there any plan to do so.

I showed charts of what happens when badger populations are disturbed, increased movement occurs, especially of new animals into the area, thereby possibly increasing the infection risk to both badgers and cattle.

I showed a clip of Lord Krebs, a notable scientist criticising the campaign against the badger as a waste of time and money and based upon poor science. I read statements from several scientific bodies, including the RSPB, RSPCA, and Mammal Society.

Finally I asked why the culled badgers weren’t being examined for signs of TB, and finished with Badger, Ratty and Mole along with Toad walking down the road having sorted out the stoats and weasels from Toad Hall.

The audience were very kind and applauded for a few minutes. The chairman stood up and said, “I was so pleased when Dr Watts agreed to speak to us, I had the pleasure of seeing her talk in Portsmouth at a school about dormice and film making and it was as polished a performance as this tonight, thank you, Cathy, for your presentation.”

I took a few questions one or two were good several weren’t and showed that we hadn’t got the scientific evidence over to most people, who were outraged because Mr Brock, looked like a cuddly character. I didn’t like to tell them that a badger has a phenomenally powerful bite and has been known to take the face of a dog sent to fight them.

I collected my stuff, declined to stay for a drink and set off for home. By the time I got there the buzz from performing live was fading and I felt really quite tired. Jacquie made me a cuppa and Simon came to ask how it had gone. I went up to change out of the shoes which were rubbing my toes and also take the dress off, it was too good to sit about in.

I passed Danni’s bedroom as I went to come down and thought I heard a funny noise. I checked, she was curled up on the bed crying, really sobbing her heart out. I went in and sat on the edge of the bed.

“What’s the matter, darling?” I asked rubbing her shoulder.

“I’m dead,” she said sniffing.

“What d’you mean?”

“They know it was me.”

“Who knows what?”

“Those boys,” she said in between sobs, “they know it was me.”

“This afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“How d’you know?”

“They put it on facebook and twitter with photos.”

“And the photos are of you and Pia?”

“Yes,” she sobbed.

“Okay, we can’t do anything tonight, so I want you to try and get some sleep. Then tomorrow we’ll see what we can do.”

“I’m dead, I’m dead,” she kept saying.

“No you’re not, in fact you’re a long way from it. I’ll ask Daddy to speak to the legal department tomorrow and see if we can persuade the various sites to remove the pictures.”

“They won’t, an’ it’s too late, I’m dead. They’ll kill me in school.”

“No they won’t, I won’t let them.”

“You don’t know them like I do.”

“If it looks that bad I’ll withdraw you from the school and suggest if they don’t do something about this bullying, I might just sue them for allowing the assault to happen in the first place. That should focus their minds a little. Now, Missy, I want you to sleep and try to put this out of your mind until the morning, okay. Now give me a kiss and off to sleep.”