Hamish Ramsden
This essay, written towards the end of my second year, was part of the Practice of
History module. The module was subdivided into different seminar groups and
worked towards preparing for our dissertations. My seminar group focused on
Disasters in British History. Each week would feature a different disaster in British
history to analyse and new research skills to develop. Inspiration found me,
unashamedly, while binge- watching the series Clarkson’s Farm on a Sunday
morning. It reminded me of an article I had read about the 2001 Foot and Mouth
outbreak that had plagued the British countryside. Further reading that inspired this
essay was Catherine O’Byrne’s Remembering the ‘Piper Alpha Disaster’, which
focused on the personal testimonies of disasters and was a subject I looked to
explore further. Initially, I thought the topic might be a dead-end due to difficulties
gathering primary source material. Still, after a few days, I began to find numerous
diary accounts of the families and communities which suffered due to the outbreak of
FMD. Many were asked to keep official daily diaries during the outbreak, which
formed the core of my primary sources. I found the testimonies to be all too relatable
to the national lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was from this I
formed the basis of my question: What was the human cost of the 2001 FMD
outbreak? I found this essay to be a stimulating subject and a valuable medium for
developing my independent research skills in preparation for my dissertation.
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