Lamb to the slaughter

Today I came across this story, which tells us that when he slit a fully-conscious lamb's throat on television, many viewers reacted with horror. Now, Jamie Oliver's bloody stunt has earned him the position of second lamb in line for the slaughter.

The reaction is predictable, but what I want to know is this: when people sit down to their Sunday roast, where do they think the meat comes from? And what's the big fuss about the lamb being conscious? Do people think that in slaughterhouses the lambs are sedated before they are killed? Perhaps they think there is soothing music, too, and a last request.

This whole thing reminds me of a time, many years ago, when my father had agreed to swap a lamb for a side of beef from another farmer. He brought the lamb home from the farm to slaughter it, but on the day he was supposed to do the job he was drunk and incapable. My younger brother, who was thirteen at the time, volunteered to do the job instead. (My father's alcoholism was the family secret and shame, and we'd do anything to prevent people from finding out.) We told him he didn't have to do it, we'd think up some excuse, but he explained that he knew how from watching my father doing it, and it would be hypocritical not to, wouldn't it? After all, he ate meat, too. And the job had to be done at some point, so why not by him? The farmer was coming to get the meat today, and my father had said it would be ready. Promises should be kept.

My brother was always a thoughtful kid, and very, very serious about being a good person.

At this time we'd been having problems with the neighbour's kids and their friends, who were a bunch of bullies. They used to lean over the fence and throw rocks at our little collection of animals in the back yard at home - chickens, ducks, a goat and her baby, a puppy, and I can't remember what else. We'd told them to stop, and complained to their parents, but they took no notice. They used to taunt my brothers with being sissies for not fighting with them, and were giving them a hard time at school. We were a weird family, and natural targets.

Anyway, that Saturday morning my brother sharpened the big knife and caught the lamb. That was the easy bit, as it was fairly tame, but he was not looking forward to the next part and wasn't really sure that he could do it. While he was contemplating the task, four heads appeared over the fence. It was the neighbour's kids and their bullying friends. They started taunting my brother, as usual, and threatening to throw rocks at him.

My brother looked up, thoughtfully, annoyed at the interruption but seeing an opportunity.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said, matter-of-factly. "And you guys better stop throwing rocks at the animals."

"Oh yeah?" they jeered. "What are you going to do about it?"

My brother gazed at them seriously.

"Well, if you keep doing it, you just never know what might happen," he said.

Then he picked up the knife and cut the lamb's throat. It was a fast, clean cut, and the lamb died quickly. He had learned well from my father, who hated to hurt animals.

Hearing gagging sounds my brother looked up again, awash with blood, just in time to see four green faces slipping down behind the fence. He was rather pale himself, but told me later that actually their presence made the job easier. He didn't enjoy slaughtering the lamb, but it gave him enormous pleasure to frighten the shit out of those horrible kids.

The incident probably didn't do much for our reputation as a weird family, but we certainly had no more problems from the neighbour's kids after that.