FOOT and mouth disease … the words cast a chill over the countryside. The devastation which an outbreak caused in Cumbria, a few years ago, is remembered with anguish by all in farming and many others who were aware of the massive slaughter of animals and the dire effect on the local economy.

How could anything useful — even desirable and pleasurable — emerge from such havoc? And yet it did, because of a new strategy to soften the blow — a call for diversification, encouraging farmers to spread their wings into additional activities.

Farm shops are one result of the new regime, while another development is a switch to catering, with outbuildings and barns becoming stylish restaurants.

This has been the silver lining of the dark cloud of foot and mouth, with several notable transformations in the area around Penrith.

Cars are parked in farmyards while their owners tuck into generous meals, served in a homely way.

“Going out for a meal” in 2007 may mean a short journey into the countryside to sample quiches, savoury pies, soups and casseroles, with evening meals and Sunday lunches also available.

Some farm-based eating houses have joined forces to produce a publicity brochure, which stresses the virtues of home-cooking and the in-built opportunities to observe agricultural activities, as well as the “glorious landscape” of the Eden Valley, giving a real country feel to the eating experience.

“HEART” OF A NEWSPAPER

Because of structural improvements to the front office of the Herald building in King Street, Penrith, the advertising staff moved temporarily into other quarters, further back in the premises — to what could be described as the very “heart” of the newspaper, the machine room where the mighty Cossar press was once housed.

To those with “ink in the blood” the roar of the Cossar was the grand finale to the week’s endeavours.

Hundreds of news stories and reports had been written by reporters or contributed by village correspondents, edited by Robert Irving and others and set in lead type by linotype operators on the topmost floor of the building.

For those were the days of “hot metal” printing — a far cry from today’s swisher, slicker methods, made possible by mastery of the computer.

Formes containing pages of lead type and pictures were lowered from top to bottom of the building and placed in position on the waiting press, adjacent to reels of newsprint, by machine-man Bert Stanaway and his colleagues.

For those who had never seen the operation before, it was a heart-stopping moment each Friday, as the Cossar roared into action, the complex mechanism flashing, pounding and spewing out thousands of papers.

The big machine seldom faltered, although there was a sudden breakage, probably around 50 years ago, when the formes had to be taken to Carlisle on a lorry and the press of the Carlisle Journal performed a rescue act. A more up-to-date press superseded the old one and now the Herald is printed in Carlisle, but the mighty Cossar was a vital part of its history, now approaching 150 years.

GOOD OLD DAYS?

Thank goodness for the skills of the British plumber and the sanitation and hygiene he brings to our homes.

The thought is inspired by a short passage in Bretherdale: A childhood odyssey, Don McClen’s book about his war-time evacuation from Tyneside to a remote valley in Cumbria, at the age of six.

Writing of the farmhouse, which was his home for four years, from 1939, he recalls: “The only lavatory was a dry closet, which was 20 yards away from the house, in a stone building which included the henhouse.”

The alternative was to use a chamber pot kept under the bed.

Many veterans have vivid memories of those primeval times, during the 1930s and before.

Using a chamber pot was a tentative exercise, calling for agility and a sense of balance, and posing problems for the elderly and infirm.

However, a night-time visit to an outside toilet was even more accident-prone, often involving a jittery walk across a farmyard by the wavering light of a hand-held torch.

Toilet rolls were unknown in rural Cumbria in the 1930s when cleanliness generally depended on strips of torn-up newspaper on a string.

And they talk about the good old days!

NOSE FOR NEWS

A recent mention of a pet dog, named Apollo, as a source of inspiration to the writer of this column, was echoed in The Times by Michael Gove, who apparently receives similar support from his Jack Russell puppy, Mars.

“For Mars,” he says, “is simply the best soother of nerves I’ve ever come across. His presence on one’s lap brings a sense of serenity and companionship that acts as a tonic on work-jangled nerves.”

This surely confirms what was claimed in this column about a working partnership with Apollo, an Italian greyhound, which spreads itself across the left thigh, as the items are written on a pad.

Several dogs have given pleasure in the past, but none of them showed Apollo’s nose for news, as he casts big brown eyes over the words before they are seen by a more critical readership.