Betfred - Bread St. - 6.15pm-ish, 24Apr10

It's different now to when I lived in that area in the early 70s, so it's odds-on that it will change again.

I remember many years ago when I was a child there was an abattoir in Bread Street I hated walking up there and hearing the cattle. There was also a Spiritualist Church if I remember correctly.

Yes TG, the church is still there and I think it's still in use. Can you remember where the abattoir was in Bread Street? Not somewhere I would have wanted to walk past either.

As you walked up from Adelaide Street heading towards Arcade Steps it was on the right hand side just before the Spiritualist Church. There used to be bars on the windows and you could not see in because there was also wood shutters but you could definitely hear the cattle which was very disconcerting!

I remember that slaughterhouse, too, and seeing blood in the gutters outside. Horrible.

I remember looking through a hole in the door after coming home from the same primary school as TG and the sight was not a happy one. I unexpectedly saw a cow fall to the floor and quivering there violently. I ran off feeling very queasy indeed!

I can't imagine there being an abattoir there, with residential houses nearby. It must have given kids nightmares knowing what was going on. But I guess, different times then and people were a lot harder when it came to animal welfare. I'm a meat eater but I'm embarrassed to say I'm one of those people who block out the fact that an animal needs to be killed to put meat on my plate.

I have to confess that I'm also ambivalent about it. If I had to do the slaughtering myself, I'd soon become a vegetarian! But then, if I had to be Prime Minister - or even an MP - I'd give up my vote rather than be one myself. If I had to be a soldier, well, I'd desert or cringe, shaking like a jelly in a corner, but I'm still grateful for the Services! It doesn't mean to say that all are totally necessary or some cases totally beneficial, but their absence would make life a lot less secure or interesting. It's the variety of aptitudes and attitudes in the world that are necessary to make it go round. Killing humans or animals for 'fun' is quite another matter. Is that what soldiers or slaughtermen do? Maybe in some rare cases and maybe in some cases there is job satisfaction or a sense of fulfilment of another kind.

I was just thinking this morning (beginner's luck!) that we are being warned that there is too much salt in our curries and yet, were we back in the culture whereby salt was once as valuable as gold in the world, we'd probably be told we hadn't enough of it in our food as the producers certainly wouldn't be over generous with it then! There you are, tabtab, a one-off don't-know-what-I'm-talking-about blog from Trep!

Don't forget up to the late 60's there wasn't so many residential propertys in Bread Street, we also had Farmers Markets, I can remember animals being taken down to be slaughtered. It was a way of life.
My family were butchers, my Uncle had a slaughterhouse on his farm in Newbridge and I spent many a weekend helping him there, it was as I say a way of life, and because of that I have no problems with it. Today health and safety are so up front that unless someone is very unscrupulas animals do not suffer.

I think things were probably better then, when farmers had slaughterhouses on their farms - assuming of course the farmers showed the animals due respect. No transportation stress for the animals crammed into trucks. Once we moved into mass meat consumption, animals herded into trucks, then taken away to slaughter houses and kept in holding pens waiting for the chop, the smell of fear and death in the air, that's when it all gets a tad grim.