I don’t usually read Farmer Bendell’s weekly diatribe but when I saw he had written about the live exports trade and the demonstrations at the docks all those years ago, I read on.

He doesn’t change, does he? The same sarcasm, innuendo and pathetic attempts at a joke.

No I don’t remember students and “emotional women in dungarees” I do remember representatives from RSPCA, Woodside & ACT and hundreds of local people who never failed to turn up, in all weathers, outraged by this appalling cruelty.

I do hope that Mr Bendell was not among the farmers who threatened to “beat us up”.

No. Compassion in World Farming was not responsible for the closure of small abattoirs.

They, like the RSPCA, have always advocated slaughter as near to the farm as possible, avoiding long and arduous journeys.

Mr Bendell sneers at this wonderful organisation, forgetting, although he probably is not aware, that it was a farmer, sickened by the way farming was heading, who founded CIWF.

Joanna Lumley, another of his targets has worked tirelessly for CIWF for many years. The future is not looking good for our farm animals. the live export trade is still going on through Kentish ports. Now we hear that many abattoirs are using the inhumane Halal method of slaughter. Why on earth do we have to lower our standards of animal welfare in this way?

Jean Turner, Plymouth