On the 3rd of April 2021, my friend and I were walking our dogs on leads in Hastings Country park. A group of belted Galloway cattle were all mingling around a gate. We saw them up ahead, way before they saw us, so we slowly turned around and started walking slowly back down the hill.
But the cattle spotted us, and began walking towards us. So we started walking a little bit quicker – and they started jogging down the hill towards us. They were gathering pace.
We decided to start running, and we let go of our dogs. My friend, who is a pensioner, fell over and hurt her knee. With the belted Galloways still coming towards us at speed, I managed to get her up. We also had an elderly dog with us – a big labrador – who couldn’t walk very fast. We kept going, with my friend hobbling and me trying to carry my labrador.
We managed to turn a corner. The cattle followed us a little while longer, and then they stopped because the terrain was getting steeper. We got through the gate with the dogs and the emotion that we felt – well, I sat and cried for almost 20 minutes. I’m sure if we hadn’t got away we would’ve been trampled to death.
It was the worst experience of my life. How we managed to escape was beyond me.
My friend hurt her knee quite badly and still suffers with it now, more than 2 years later. I am now so frightened of cattle that I will not enter a field, or go into the country park, when I know that cattle are roaming.
Hastings Country Park is a small country park with disabled access paths, and this is just an accident waiting to happen. Still the council are adamant that there is not a problem – they are now wanting to introduce 20 brown cattle to the area. We are trying to fight this.
There were no warning signs.
We reported it to the police and to the local council, but nobody is investigating this incident as there was no real injury and nobody was seriously hurt. I don’t think that anybody takes this matter seriously enough and this is the problem.
I was listening to Dr. Helen Lambert on Jeremy Vine’s programme on radio 2 yesterday. Dr Lambert is an animal psychotherapist. She believes that cows and humans should not be mixed, and I believe the same.
Photo credit: Pixabay
Report reference: 287109469
Cattle Safety 