 But imagine those farmers every time they take their beloved animals that have lived with them for seven or eight years to slaughter. What don't any of them ever look back and think, those cows look back and think, what are you doing to me, man? What are you doing to me? Where am I going? I can hear all that in there. You can argue all you want that people have had all of these indoctrinations. But actually, people know what's right and wrong. And to see those individual animals that, you know, when they see the farmer going up the field, those cows bellow out to them, because for whatever reason, you know, and they must have a relationship, but they're just, unfortunately, they're just hard. They're just cold. Okay, so here we are, another episode of The Carb Strongcast. And I'm here with a good friend of mine, Billy, from the Retreat Animal Rescue up here in Kent, Ashton. Ashford. Ashford, Kent. So Billy, I'm excited to have this podcast with you because you've been vegan for a long time now. How long have you been vegan for? Come out for 32 years now. 32 years. So the same amount of time I've been on the earth. Oh boy. Yeah. Oh, bless. Yeah. But that's crazy. So a lot of the people listening might not know who you are. So you could just give a brief overview of what you do and then we'll get into how you got into that. Yeah, okay. When I'm founder of the Retreat Animal Rescue, which is a farmed animal sanctuary, but also a sanctuary for horses, domestic animals, and British wildlife. So that's kind of, I'm at the helm of that. Oh, wow. And like, it seems very simple, but there's a lot that goes on here. But how did you, how did you find yourself, you know, involved with sanctuaries? Well, so from a very, very young age, you know, you always loved animals and that kind of, then that grows into justice. Yeah. Basically you want justice. So from the age of 14, really vegetarian, not vegan, vegetarian. Why? Why did you go vegetarian because you cared about animals? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I saw in a cookery lesson at school, they brought in some dead pheasants and some dead rabbits. And I had rabbits and chickens at home. Oh, wow. So that was it. When I saw that's what you're going to make the food out of. Instant vegetarian. Yeah. So you didn't just not eat pheasants and rabbits, you just didn't eat any animals after that. No animals, no animals. And of course, you go home, you got your guinea pigs and your rabbits and you think, wow, this is like, that's the same little creatures. So that was it. And then I started dog walking at sanctuaries, cleaning out at sanctuaries, or rescue centers, as they were called then. And then it just grew really. So yeah, and the justice part of it grew. You know, you just want justice for animals. And you think, well, actually, I don't want to be part of this. So yeah, that's what happened. When did you recognize the full scope or come to awareness of the full scope of what we're doing to animals? So really, when I was 19, for my shame, I was told about veganism. I was explained. And actually, I didn't believe it. I thought this cannot be true. There wasn't the internet then. So I had to go to the library, get books. And basically, the books were all written by the milk and dairy industry and the meat industry. So basically, they painted a really wonderful picture of it all. So it took me a year, which is terrible, isn't it? So when I was 20, I got the opportunity to go to a farm. And that's it. The truth is there. Once you see it with your own eyes, there's no going back. You know, that's it. So you say an opportunity to go to a farm. You were invited onto the farm or you just went and had a look or actually, I was offered a cow. So I was so already saving animals. So I was offered a cow. And I thought, well, I love cows. You know, I'm happily drinking milk and eating the cheese and whatever. So I went and saw it. And although in the UK, veal crates had been outlawed, I assumed when you outlaw someone, you dismantle it and it all goes. But they were still using veal crates, but called them the nursery. So once I saw all the babies in the nursery, I was mortified. I thought this cannot be true. So I came home with free calves. So yeah. Wait, is this the first animals that you've ever taken out of or over rescued or? No, so it wasn't the first because but it was the first rescue of calves really. And that's what set me on my vegan journey. Yeah, because of the dairy industry. And obviously, yeah, a lot of people don't see that. They turn vegetarian for ethics, because it's quite obviously a chopped up animals body. And they don't realize about the other industries. Now we've got social media that they're amazing. So that information just spreads like wildfire now. Yeah. So at the start, you were probably like a surprise that a lot of what happens in the industry. And what did that turn into that surprise or that anger? Well, I think when you're told things, so I remember the farmer's wife telling me, Oh, don't worry, the mums are used to it now, which now we accept is something called cancellation of hope. You know, we know that these animals suffer from cancellation of hope. But when I was told, you know, they accept it, no, they don't accept it. That's absolutely they can't do anything about it. You know, acceptance is something that maybe we can still do something about but they couldn't. So that was it for me. Yeah, no more milk. Well, it's crazy to me that they use euphemisms like nursery for something that's obviously not a nursery. Oh, yeah, there was a better one that she said, I'll never forget this. I said, when I saw these lines of babies, I said, and they have water and like rabbit mix. So there's no milk, there's water and this cereal. I said to the farmer's wife, this is the woman, well, how do you make these calves, these newborns drink water and eat milk and eat cereal because this is completely against what they do. And she actually replied a welly on the head. So basically she had walked along with her welly pushing their little heads into the buckets. And yeah, this is how much she cared about them, welly on the head. Wow. So she'd stomp their heads into the food to force them to do something that is not natural for them. So they obviously weren't wanting to feed off their mother. Yeah, absolutely. So they're waiting for the milk, but there's no milk coming. You know, you're four days old or whatever, you'll get a welly on the head to drink the water. Because we're on the topic of dairy. Veal crates were obviously for the veal industry and veal isn't, well, it's been outlawed here. No, it's not consumed here as much. No, it hasn't been outlawed here. We stopped veal crates in the 80s. But when people still eat veal, we just group house them now. So, you know, and so it's meant to be a nicer thing. They're in the play pens now, not the nursery. Because seeing dairy farms, they're all in those hutches. They're the female calves, the ones that they're growing for to be used in the dairy. Well, basically, you only replace a third of the herd every year. So females won't, not every female will go to be a milk. She'll be veal as well. So we've got a lovely female dairy cow here. Yeah, female dairy calf. She's a yearling now. She would have been veal. So yeah. So it's just the veal crates that are outlawed, not the practice of killing babies for meat. Absolutely. Unbelievable, really, when you think about it, that you think, right, something's been stopped. So they would be dismantled. But oh no, they're just used. They're just called something else. They find any way they can to make money off these animals, whether they're babies or whether they're fully grown or just everything, their skin and yeah, absolutely. In fact, the first cow that came to live at the the retreat, she was just 12 pounds in money. And she was 10 days old. And the woman was buying her to make mittens. So not even meat, she was going to use her skin to make mittens. That's all her life would have, you know, that's all it reduced to. 12 pounds for someone's life. It's crazy how we put a price on these animals. Absolutely. Can you imagine being that young in a ring, how alien it must be, a livestock market, you're a baby, there's no parent, nothing else. There you are, just terrible. Yeah, I've been to live sale of animals and it just, to me, it just rings of the slave trade. I mean, the terrified animals torn from their mothers, you know, humans all around them, scared and they're being sold off. You know, for me, I don't see any difference to that. I mean, it's crazy we treat them just purely as products and objects, basically. Yeah, absolutely. And I suppose here in the UK, people are mortified when you see dog and cats in cages going to be into the food chain. What difference is that to a lobster, a chicken, a trout, a salmon, you know, a cow, a pig, what difference is it? You know, they all want to live. So, yeah, just our perception of those animals and absolutely the value we give to them, not the value that's intrinsic inside of these animals. Yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, we devalue them or we give them value depending on species or, you know, the cultural sort of level we're at with the way we view animals at the time and whatever country you're in, it differs, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So with the retreat, you founded it back in the 80s or 89 or was it? Yeah, absolutely. So 30 years ago, really. So that was the start of it all. So it was just on a rented bit of land, you know, helping what you can, taking in what you can, and it's grown from there really. Wow. And how many animals do you house now? So we just did our count for the week and we've got about 1100 at the moment. Wow, amazing. That's everything. So that's from every pigeon that lives here, to every fish, to every turtle, turkey, chicken, cockerel, sheep, cat dog, whatever. Yeah. Wow. Sounds like a lot of animals to care for, quite overwhelming. You've got a team behind you, though? I've got an amazing team. Yeah, this isn't all down to one person. This isn't all down to me. This is down to the people behind you. And that's not just the people that look after the animals. That's the people that give, that bring animal food and newspaper embedding. So yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, it's great. It's great here. It's a beautiful place here. I love it here at The Retreat. And I want to get into, obviously, well, 30 years is a long time and you would have seen a lot of animals come and go. You would have seen a lot of suffering, that animals endure, and a lot of animals seeking sanctuary from this industry that exploits and kills them. You would have lost a lot of animals along the way. Can you talk about some of your struggles with running a sanctuary this size? Yeah, definitely. Well, I think really, you're based, you know, every day there are those same struggles. But I think what we see is they're different in trends of animals. So 30 years ago to maybe 10 years ago, almost every pig that would come would be a pig that survived the meat industry. Now you're up against it with the pet pig trade. So you're getting dumped pigs, pet pigs all the time. So actually, they're actually stealing the places of the meat pigs, you know, so where once you would have 100% meat pigs that were saved, you're now mopping up after the pet industry. So that's like another challenge now. So what do people think that they're buying a mini pig and they grow up? Or what's going on here? Yeah, without a doubt, they think they're going to buy. I actually had a woman who once said, I bought this pig and I was told it would stay the size of a guinea pig. Well, you know, guinea pig is like a bag of sugar, isn't it? So yeah, no, this pig's going to be like 150 kilos. And once they get to six months, that's when they start really packing on the size. Absolutely. Yeah. And these people have bought these things thinking, you know, because there's no regulation. I mean, it's actually in the UK, it's actually illegal to own a single pig, but I can tell you the amount of people that buy single pigs and hand them into the, you know, no one's policing it, not just so the breeders just happy to sell you whatever. So terrible. So and like obviously the industry, they manipulate the genetics of these animals and they're feeding them these growth like antibiotics to stimulate growth in these animals. And they're coming up against, you know, just disease and things that the industry have sort of left them with. Yeah, absolutely. So for instance, if we look at pigs, if pigs from the meat industry arrive here, I think they're slaughter, wait at about seven months old. So you've kind of got this ginormous animal that you're going to have to deal with. And actually, if you carried on feeding it like that, you're going to have a dead pig at 10, you know, where now our pigs live to 15, 18 years old. So yeah, because we control that kind of intake of those high-calorie foods. Yeah. And what about birds like chickens? And I think chickens, because what are they lasting now? Like in the meat industry, like 40 days or something like that? Yeah. So that's, I think they're commonly known as broiler chickens, aren't they? And that's terrible because they're the kindest, kindest creatures. You know, I mean, they arrive here with all sorts of problems. And there's very little we can do for them. You know, we just make their life happy for that short time, might have them for a year, a year and a half, but not much more than that. Yeah, their little hearts and their little bodies just, their bodies grow so quickly and they just can't support their way. And yeah, it's their frame, you know, that frame can't support everything that's going on so quickly as well. And the other thing is all these industrial bread animals, they're all laced with antibiotics. You bring them to a sanctuary where it's all happy and outside. And actually, they're up against it because they no longer get all the antibiotics. So anything that the wild birds fly with, that's why you see these epic outbreaks of what's it called, avian flu, swine fever. This is what happens, isn't it? It's terrible. Yeah, it's almost like that. They're rescued out of that suffering and then they have these other battles to deal with afterwards that the industry leave them with too. It's almost like they're never truly free from what the industry does to them. Oh, you're absolutely right. Yeah, they will live with that till the day they die. It's so terrible. So you offer them the best life that you can and there's times where you have to let go of animals and any animal that has left a mark on you that you sort of always remember or there's just too many, there's no... I think that there's always going to be those iconic ones. There's ones that are under your skin. I mean, recently we lost a duck and there is this, probably bought six billion people on the earth who think, oh, it's just a duck. But actually, the duck was called Mr. Darcy and we had had him a long time and he had been, he was taken out of a duck farm that actually went bust. It was in the newspaper. He was one of, I think we had three and a half thousand or something come from there. He was such a character. Everyone loved him. I mean, he was the most amazing thing. But it came to that day where absolutely you have to do the best thing because for a lot of people, they don't understand that because we call ourselves a no kill shelter, that doesn't mean we don't put animals to sleep at their end of their lives when they need to be put to sleep. So we don't ignore that. When that time comes, we absolutely put them to sleep. And he's time came recently and so heartbreaking as it will always be heartbreaking. So let's just talk about that because a lot of people might not understand that, but if you put like a human being in that situation where there's suffering and there's not much more you can do for them, of course the most humane thing to do in that case would be in the animal's interest to take them out of that suffering and let them go. So there's a distinction there between robbing someone of their life that's completely fine and wants to live or exploiting them, putting them through this suffering and then robbing them of their life to eat their body or whatever. It's like if your dog is sick, you're going to put them down if there's nothing more that it can do. And I think with the bigger mammals like the cattle, their time comes when they're older and they've grown weak and they can't get up. Because for those large animals, they can't sustain lying down for long periods of time. It's not good for them. So you kind of know when that time comes, but it'll never be easy. And actually it's probably a little bit harder than putting your dog to sleep because in the UK people love dogs and cherish them, but we don't with cows. So those cows we have put to sleep represent the horrors that are going on in the industry. Yeah, they really do. I always have this bit of sweet feeling when I'm here, like these animals are the lucky ones, but it makes you think of all the animals that are unlucky and they're just too many to comprehend. The sheer numbers, even just here in the UK, the sheer numbers are like these sheds filled with chickens and filled with pigs. You never see pigs really out there on the ground. They're all in sheds, aren't they? Absolutely. Like recently, a lorry crashed with 10,000 chickens on it, 10,000. I mean, we can't imagine it, can we? They're suffering. And also you're right about the bit of sweet thing. Because when we've got a calf at the sanctuary, everyone is like, oh, isn't this wonderful? But actually that calf's mother is still in the system somewhere. That calf's grandmother will still be in the system somewhere. It's terrible. And I guess you're like with sanctuaries. You're really on the front line with the individuals here. And so you're constantly faced with that. And like, how do you go psychologically with constantly being faced with this reality and these individuals coming out of this industry and then seeing, let's just say the TV turns on and they're cooking steak on the barbecue or there's a chef on cooking a piece of a chicken. Like, how do you reconcile that being so closely connected to animals on a day-to-day basis? Is it harder for you or have you come to some sort of peace in your mind about it or? Oh, no, there's no peace. There's no peace. I mean, I don't think you could actually be a vegan and have peace. How could you? But the first thing, don't watch telly. Don't watch anyway, where you're going to see those Christmas ads because it's going to be all those terrible things. But actually the other side of that, social media, it's so individual to you that you get to see all the other horrors, you get to see all those. There was ones who were alive awaiting that. So actually what you have to do, part of our survival, the team survival, is you have to every day look at what you're doing here and actually think actually, and the new people you meet, the kind of people are waking up, you know, all the time, they're just embracing it. So yeah, we just have to be, you know, basing things on that. So you're just looking at it with the perspective of, okay, if you focus on the horrors too much, it might leave you hopeless. But when you focus on the change that's happening in the work that you're doing, it gives you a different perspective and a better feeling about things. You're right. I mean, you can't change what's behind you. So we've got to look forward, you know, and actually, I'm a great one. I know it's heavily criticized, but I'm a great one for baby steps. If people are telling me they're doing things, rather than people sitting on their butts and doing nothing, I'd rather people be, you know, I love to hear people say, Oh, I've changed my milk and I'm drinking plant milk. We had a visitor the other day that said it's absolute nonsense that the dairy industry is dying, milk drinking is dying, but actually cheese and the other products from milk on the rise. But thankfully, plant milk is on the rise. So we have to be grateful for that as well. Yeah, we have to live in reality too. Maybe that because we have to know what to do as activists. If we know milk drinking is declining, but you know, cheese and chocolate and all these other products, then we know what to target. You're right. Target the cheese. And that's actually why it's great. Listen to the almost like the enemy. Listen to them to tell you this is actually what's happening. We're making big money out of cheese now, you know, because actually milk is very cheap because people don't want to drink it. So we're making big money out of cheese. So yeah, that's the next thing, isn't it? Yeah. And I agree. Like with someone goes, like if a family member of mine goes, I've stopped drinking dairy, I'm not going to go, you're still exploiting all these other animals or your shoes, leather, I'm going to positively reinforce that, that change and make them feel good about it because it is a good thing. Absolutely. Anything in the right direction, anything where an animal is going to get some respite from, you know, I'm grateful for, you know, the times are so different now 30 years ago, you'd be I spent a decade without a vegan friend, you know, so now you, the pleasure of having social media, you have a social media account, you got two and a half thousand mates, seven year old vegan, it seems incredible, but a decade without a vegan mate. So now I'm just like, if I hear people going in the right direction, I'm just so grateful. Yeah, that's amazing. And what was it like for 10 years not having a vegan friend felt isolated or? I must just say my sister did, did it with me. So I always have my sister who is still by my side today, still helps heavily in the, the sanctuary does everything. So I always had her. So amazing. That was incredible. But yeah, it was still really difficult because of course, there was vegans, there was punks. I wasn't a punk. I was really square, you know, really boring. My sister looked like Princess Diana. Do you know what I mean? So we weren't punks. We weren't hippies. So that was the other thing. So there was a few vegans around, but they were either punks or hippies and there wasn't no, we couldn't find any square vegans, do you know what I mean? So yeah, yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't easy, you know. So we're very grateful now. Yeah, there's many vegans and the power of our social media and community can connect with people all over the planet. There's no reason to feel isolated or alone when there's so many of us now. And supermarkets, what a place to meet vegans. You're at the vegan cheese aisle and everyone says, oh, you were vegan. You're buying that. And it's so brilliant. And you, you just connect, you know, it's, it's fantastic. I love it. Supermarkets are my favorite to meet these ones for sure. I mean, we're so grateful for that as well. So in the early days, we, did you ever get in any trouble for helping animals? Because I know like obviously this is legally sanctioned what happens to animals. Have you ever found yourself in any trouble for helping animals? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So what we'd class as the other side of the law, because obviously animal protesting back in the 80s and early 90s was a little bit more relaxed than it is now. I mean, but yeah, I was absolutely arrested for all sorts of things sitting down on demonstrations, live exports, anti, I think one of, what was it? It was the shark, the shark protesting. Cornwall, I was arrested there. Shark fins or was it just shark fishing? Okay. So yeah, there was like a big tournament every year and we went to stop that. And then there was some live export. Yeah, I was arrested many, many times. So, you know, you end up in trouble and sitting in, I think actually I had, I was in Bow Street police station over the bank holiday and then they sent me on Tuesday morning. And although my mum and dad weren't happy, you know, I'm kind of like, numbed in this for the animals. So you felt that your actions were justified and you were on the right side? Yeah, I think so. And we look back actually now and we can see actually we had breakthroughs. You know, there was one thing after another where we stopped actually terrible things happening to animals. There was the last cat farm for vivisection in Britain, which called Hill Grove cat farm. And you know, people power stopped that just wonderful, you know, those things we just stood up and were counted and yeah, brilliant. So in principle, do you think it's quite insane that those who are trying to do the right thing are being arrested and chucked in prison for it? Well, it's always happened, hasn't it? I mean, I think this year we saw the movie of the suffragettes and you know, it's a suffragettes were really into criminal damage, which where they blew up post boxes. And because they were like, you're going to listen to us, you know, so it's it's kind of something direct action where no one gets injured. But actually, people will listen to you and it absolutely works. And, you know, we should be thankful for it. So so in terms of direct, this is a topic that's heavily debated within the vegan activist community in the vegan community generally is whether these forms of direct action where people are chaining themselves on to like slaughterhouses, they're standing in front of trucks, they might be spray painting things on walls to get, you know, media attention, you know, what do you think about that? Do you think this is essential to social change? Oh, absolutely. I think every form of activism is important. And maybe people don't see the point of it at the time, but you can you can see it's like the ripple effect, you know, there may be only four or five people on a chicken save standing on the side of the road. But how many people to, you know, how many people have started? How many people will Google what they're doing afterwards? And then what comes from that? So yeah, it's all very positive. I mean, I'm for that. And also, like lately, we're seeing a big movement of people liberating animals with no masks on and posting it on social media and saying, here's the victims. What do you think about that? Like this brazen, like liberations, and they don't feel like they're doing anything wrong. So they're going to post about it. Well, they're definitely not doing anything wrong. Are they? I mean, they are definitely the brave people to go and sit by the victims and not save them, you know, for those animals not to be saved. This is quite courageous, really. I mean, I couldn't do that. I couldn't go to a safe to be honest. I couldn't go and watch those faces go in, you know, that would be soldier's throne for me. So I've got absolute admiration for those people who do it. But isn't it amazing that these people now don't have to wear a balaclava? They can go and sit there and say, no, this is me. And this is what I'm doing. I don't care who sees it. You know, I actually saw one recently and my godson was at the front. I was so proud, you know, I was just like, this is incredible. There he is. And that's just for me. That's amazing. So yeah. So you personally, being vegan 32 years, you would see that you would have seen changes in the movement. And like lately, let's just talk about the last five or six years. Like how does that feel to see the movement? Has it grown in your eyes? Has it grown exponentially? Has it gotten? Is it about the same or? I'm not sure. It's so different. I mean, back in the 80s and early 90s, it was it was all about vivisection. This is, you know, that's was our targets. And I suppose that had a long history, you know, probably in the early 80s and the early 1800s, there was, you know, people campaigning for the end of vivisection. So yeah, I mean, British Union for the abolition of vivisection. And those groups started around about the same time as the RSPCA 1824, 1825, something like that. So, you know, we're a long history of anti vivisection in the UK. So, but you always hoped for this movement against the meat and milk trade. And now it's happening. So it's absolutely incredible. Yeah, I think it's amazing. Amazing. So do you see like it being getting bigger or do you see this? What do you feel? What are your foresight for the movement? Yeah, there's an interesting thing and I suppose it's something that I ponder quite a lot. And I hear this a lot. I hear people saying there's vegan activists and there's animal rights activists. So I'm not sure if vegan activists are pushing the diet or an animal rights activists are pushing the whole thing. But I mean, this is all having benefits to animals, isn't it? The whole lot of it. The more people that eat vegan, the less animals surely in the in factory farms. Absolutely. It's got to be, you know, they're not going to carry on breeding the same number of animals and fill in these sheds. They're just not doing it, you know, it's because it's all down to economics, isn't it? So we're just going to hope that this whatever people are doing impacts on the animals. Yeah, I am totally about that. Like when I first got into this, I was like, you have to say this, otherwise you don't truly care about it. But you know, now I've gotten to realize that we all have our place and you know, we have the the chefs and the plant based advocates and the athletes and the animal rights activists and the fur activists and all of these different activists working together for, you know, the same goal we want to help animals. Absolutely. And also I think you can look at what suits people and I had a real lesson recently. There's two new vegans came to the sanctuary and they were like, we're not doing enough. We want to be activists. But actually they were terribly shy. Okay. So the next time I saw them say 12 weeks later they came and said, oh, we're into we've got into activism now. And I said, oh, what, what are you doing? And actually they're doing the, is it the cuba cheeroof with the face mask? Yep. So these two shy people put the mask on, they become somebody else. Amazing. Incredible. So, you know, this is, for me, whatever you can do for animals, you know, and even if it means that I know people will also say that being vegan is not enough. But for some people, that might be all they can do. And that's having an impact. So I'm very grateful always. Yeah, I guess being in the movement for so long, it has taken all the wins that you can get. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a royalist, but this week I put my thumbs up because apparently someone said the old queen has given up having fur on whatever. I mean, not old fur. I think she's still going to use some ceremonial costumes. But actually it's in the right, going in the right direction because there'll be a lot of individuals at Follower that think this is all right wearing fur because her Majesty wears it. But now she don't wear it. So you're going to get her followers who will go, oh, we're going to jump ship into the safe. So I'm like, yep, that's good for me. Yeah, it's even good advertising, even if, you know, let's just say in her personal life, she might not. But putting that message out to millions of people sends a message like, oh, Queen's opposing fur. Wow. Absolutely. I mean, you know, thumbs up for that. And also it gets such coverage. So you might read a story about the Queen on the internet not wearing fur and then it leads you to some other animal rights article. You know, we're grateful for that. Yeah, for sure. I'm all for these celebrities, even outwardly saying something that's pro vegan or, you know, pro animals. And, you know, a lot of vegans will, they're not technically vegan in real life. But, you know, I'm looking at it from a point of view of like, they got a huge following. They're putting that message out to millions of, you know, how long it's going to take me to reach 100 million people. Yeah, absolutely. Forever. Yeah, Joey. And I think you're right there because what you have to remember is, yeah, you can be as vegan and as animal rights as you want or you can be. But that's you and there's another 7 billion people on this earth that's not going to rule tick the same boxes that you tick. So actually, however we get them there, we get them there, you know, it may not be the way that every great animal rights guru wants us to get them there. But if we get them there, we get them there. So I'm all for it. Like my story was like, there was a raw foodist doing juicing and he wasn't an animal rights vegan. He was just like, I have some juices and the power of plant foods and the life giving force of these juices. And he's talked a little bit about karma and it's planted this seed and I use these juices to lose weight and it planted the seed of plants being healthy and karma from, you know, eating suffered animals. Now I'm a full blown animal rights activist. Yeah, you know, look at that, the way you came into it, you know, and I think that's the way I've met a few great being an activist who come here who were happily eating animals and drinking milk, but they were going on dolphin demonstrations. Someone gave him a vegan leaflet. That was it. You know, so that's their way in and now they're great people doing great work. So yeah, just be grateful that people have their eyes are opening or whatever speed or whatever rate, just be grateful their eyes are opening. Yeah, I'm all for that too. Definitely, we need to have a broader view on the vegan movement and the animal rights movement and just you know, I don't really like shooting down anyone's form of activism. Do you think there's anything that's really problematic as an activist to do or to say like what would you say that's counterproductive? I don't suppose counterproductive, but one thing that I always find peculiar if people are saying that they are vegans and they're actually not, they're still eating honey or eggs because I think now veganism has a definition like any other word and you are not a vegan if you're eating eggs wherever they come from, you know, if you're arguing that they come from your best mates who they're two chicken have got a palace in the background, you're not a vegan if you're eating products with milk in them, even if it's the tiniest bit of way, whatever, you're actually not a vegan, you know, so I think this sends out the wrong message to people it's like oh yeah I'm practically a vegan but I still eat fish, no you're not even a vegetarian if you eat fish, you know, so I think terminology is very important but apart from that I'm like let people do as they will. Yeah I get that too, you don't want people to like an influencer to be sending the wrong message of what a vegan is to a lot of people, they could say I had this vegan meal or I've been moving towards more vegan products but I'm not a practicing vegan because I'm stew. Yeah there's a great guy who speaks on the TV, I can't remember his surname, he's been on Piers Morgan's show a couple of times, he's called George Someone, he speaks about rewilding and stuff, he's incredible, he's really articulate and he knows everything he's talking about but he went on the Piers Morgan's show wearing a lever watch strap now that's bad news because if you're going to go on and represent any form of you know vegan angle you're going to make sure that your shoes are not lever, your watch strap so yeah and on Piers Morgan of all of all the shows. So if you go on to Piers Morgan's show you've got to be ready for him because he's hell bent on picking out flaws in vegans so he can just write them off as hypocrites and you've really got to be on your toes with that because I feel like they target vegans to get on the show that that can't hold their own against him, they have a history of that. What do you think about his crusade against trying to make vegans into hypocrites, do you think it's a way of making himself feel better? Probably, two things really, I do think it's a good thing because I think that kind of exposure for the vegan movement, he makes himself look a fool every time and so the vegan movement comes out winning each time really when it comes to him okay may not always have the right vegan on the show you know sometimes you can see they've got their backs against the corner, backs against the wall and you think right actually but I think where else would you get this prime time television talking about veganism and the movement and so I kind of like that in a way and we know he's an idiot, he's cruel, he's done some terrible things you know the phone hacking of children who were murdered, their parents, Stephen Lawrence, you know we could go on and on and on about what he's done, he's disgraceful but for some reason he's got this morning show, he's doing us favors I feel when he when they got me on the show they wanted to discuss a few topics but I feel like they had their ammunition on me but like as they called me they must have known about my criminal history and they must have always wanted to pull it out the bag but I didn't know anything about Pierce Morgan, I didn't know anything about the show, I'm from Australia and they wanted to get me on this Good Morning Britain, I'd heard he'd been you know speaking out against vegans or targeting veganism on his show, I didn't know anything about his history of phone hacking and also what I didn't actually know about is that he wrote an article calling for the murder of trophy hunters for poachers and he's like we should put Walter the guy that killed the rhinoceros was it? Oh yeah the dentist, the dentist, he wanted to put the guy's decapitated head up in his office you know but he criticized me for saying once when I was most angry I've ever been that I've titled a video that ethical hunters deserve a bullet in the head right? Obviously I don't put that stuff out there anymore, they found it, the media found it in some of my old posts, they made an article about it but what a hypocrite, he made, I never called for the hunters, the murder of hunters, I just said they deserve karma, he actually directly called for the murder of a hunter and he called me out for for this thing that I said about hunters when he'd done exactly the same thing. Yeah apparently it's called froth isn't it, that's what they call it on these shows it could froth but I mean people know what he's about but as long as we're talking about veganism you know it's kind of, there was the thing where a waitrose editor called for all vegans to be murdered, do you remember that? No it did Piers Morgan have him on the show and say this is a bit terrible because there are children who are vegans, they're going to school this morning, they may be struggling a bit with that you know never called so we know his angle, we know he's a despicable human being unfortunately you know and those people that have suffered most have suffered at the hands of him so we're not bothered, we're strong. And also like if he's against veganism and he's such a polarizing figure he's got so many haters out there then they might be thinking wow Piers Morgan's against it maybe I'll give it a try. Let's hope so yeah let's absolutely hope so because he has done appalling things, appalling. I do think that he helped the sausage roll go viral with Greg's and you know so it all it all like you know we talk about counterproductive things in the movement I honestly don't know about you know whether all publicity I mean I don't know whether bad publicity is necessarily bad for the movement I think it gets it into the public debate you know if there's bad publicity about vegans then it gives us a chance to step up and debate about it and you know we always win the debate. You're absolutely right yeah there's been the thing recently with plant milk people are saying oh plant milks are not all cracked up to what they're meant to be and we're like know they're meant to be pretty much filtered water with one percent of whatever is in unlike dairy milk that's been cracked up you know that's not what it has been cracked up for all these generations so it gives you time to discuss this with people which is brilliant you yeah I think if we force it into the debate we we've got the most logical position here you know we're the most consistent you know we're not veganism isn't perfect you know you know there's still impact absolutely yeah like just by living we're going to cause environmental impact animals are going to be displaced by civilization we have to come to terms with that but I feel like vegans are the most consistent you know we're without a doubt and and actually they're doing something you know this the the planet's in a mess yeah so and they're actually doing something so all of those who are just like oh case are all case are all you know the the vegans are doing something they're not going to sit back you know exactly and you're striving to to the best you can and that means like eliminating animal products from your diet and you know making sure you're not wearing you know the skins of animals and yeah these are very practical easy things to to implicate you know introduce into your lifestyle that aren't gonna you know displace your you know well-being yeah you know so I I've got a watch which is a vegan watch and um someone said recently ah you that plastic strap well what about the toxin what and I said actually it's clever it's plant leather it's not even plastic and they're like what you get the chance to talk to about about things that are new you know and they're like what do you mean and we're like well we're making leather out of mushrooms now the the runoff of the grapes from wine industry we're making you know pineapple it's just fantastic you know it's just incredible so yeah anything that gets the discussion out there I think um and it's fantastic that we have you know the power of social media and platforms like this podcast here where everyone can listen to this hope they're listening to it whether getting some exercise or cooking some vegan food so where to from here um you know you've already you've come on a long journey um you you know you've come so far you've been doing this for as long as I've been alive what do you what do you forecast for the next few years okay so ideally I'd like the retreat to be known as a discovery center yeah this is um you know for me it's it's education we can't save every animal in the world so we've got to get that education being out so I'd really like the place to be developed into a discovery center so schools could come learn about the environmental impact of farming to start to make their changes and even the local school which is a christian school um is now doing a meat free monday wow so they come and visit here so we know that that's had an impact which is absolutely brilliant so discovery center all the way obviously to continue to continue to buy more and more land to accommodate more and more animals because as we know we touched on earlier the more vegans the more um saved farm animals they're going to be you know so whereas 30 years ago when I was doing this it was predominantly horses cats and dogs that came because it was very little vegans now most of the phone calls our turkeys and piggies and you know sheep and all the food animals so bigger the better but also to develop the fact that it's going to be a discovery center yeah because um it's all well and good to rescue individual animals and that means the world to that individual animal but if you attach advocacy onto that like these are these are why animals important these are why they're intelligent they're suffering they're feeling pain this is an animal that was rescued from their injury attaching education and advocacy onto those rescues just has a knock on effect doesn't it amazing yeah absolutely I always say when I walk people around and I tell people the story of an individual animal I call it a survivor story yeah say this animal represents billions of others you know which we can't help sadly we can't help but each person takes that story home with them so the next time they're in the supermarket or they're shopping online they think about that survivor story and they think oh actually look it's a nice non-lever handbag nice non-lever pair of shoes because I remember that cow yeah you know so that for me that's really important do you think the power of an individual animal story surviving is bears more weight than the whole like let's just say millions of animal millions of cows just like that individual animal was saved do you think that you know has more emotional weight to people yeah because I think it's back to that in that kind of that fundamental that all suffering is individual so it tells the story when you see the masses so if you see that the starving on a tv show in some terrible place that is foreign to us and you know we can't understand why there's no crops and there's no water but you tell the individual story of a child or a family member and all of a sudden it brings it home you know we're all individuals and I think that's what it does with animals you know you tell the individual story of that turkey that got out of that shed of a thousand and what would have happened and people are like this is you know this is incredible so yeah absolutely amazing so let's just tell a story now tell us one of the survival stories from your farm from your sanctuary here not a farm this isn't a farm yeah so there was a little duck and sorry another little duck this is another little duck story and he was called Andrew and he was reared for for meat so supermarkets basically standard duck so he was reared and in those big as you know in those big massive units there are thousands and then they have automatic things that pick them all up and then there are some that are just stuck in the muck because they're too disabled and Andrew was what was commonly known as a scoop duck so when the mechanical stuff went in to get rid of the waste there was live ducks but they were disabled stuff and he was nothing he was muck he was going to be composted alive and he came to the center and actually reared him for four years and he was the most incredible little thing so he was terribly disabled but he could swim every day when his weight was put in the water he could still swim his walking wasn't great so he'd have to have a little chair and stuff but he could swim when he was putting water so he had to be supervised every day so yeah Andrew for me symbolizes you know across the board everything that you know what a special special little being he was and we would never forget him so never ever ever so yeah how beautiful so Andrew was nearly scooped up and you know died in there with the waste and he got a second chance yeah so like people in the injurious street called them scoop ducks because they were scooped out with a muck that was it composted alive i mean you can't you can't believe this is a country where we pride ourselves in animal welfare laws and this is commonplace we actually have terms for calves born in slaughterhouses bobby calves you know this is just unbelievable we had we have terms for these poor creatures you know it's a what you know it's unbelievable isn't it have you ever had any pregnant animals come in that you didn't know we're pregnant yeah so we had a cow she's still here now Fiona yeah so she was rescued at 14 she went to the market she was uh just basically but skin and bones so she came in and we kind of felt we'd probably have her for six months you know we looked at her condition anyway we feed her and we love her and she grows beautiful and blossoms each day and we thought that was the buckets of food we were giving her and we had no idea that she wasn't far off giving birth so two months into us having her we came out one morning and boom there was Myrna a little brown calf so Fiona would have gone to slaughter um what two months off of uh giving birth so possibly in that slaughterhouse in a fit of frenzy she would have given birth to to that baby in that slaughterhouse or if not murdered with a with a viable baby inside so they both live here their bond is incredible you know we look at them every day and think you know they symbolize um in britain alone 150 000 term mothers go to slaughter every year they're lined up in that line and their babies are kicking ready to come out and they're in that line to be murdered you know just because their milk yields are dropped or they've got mastitis again or they're a little bit lame you know those animals were deliberately impregnated they were so this is not like a this is not like a myth these animals were impregnated and those farmers know that they are pregnant and still 150 000 that's death for his numbers that's not you know vegans numbers death was number 150 000 a year go to slaughter term pregnant unbelievable horrible and they've lost probably four or five calves to pregnancies you know to the farmers you know before that um and what do they do with these calves have you heard of the fetal calf serum is that they they take the the blood out of these calves to use um as serum oh boy yeah so i think they use a lot of the the the calf serum in experiments and it's horrible like frankenstein stuff isn't it yeah absolutely disgusting um so who would believe this i mean if you was to stop the people on the street who would believe this it's like we're their eyes are closed don't we we're just like we're just kept in the dark about this stuff i mean put humans in the animals position we'd be like saying this this is an atrocity but it's almost like these things are brushed over because they're animals because it's the way we view animals like we just like oh they're just animals so it doesn't really matter that much it's pretty bad but like i think not cats and dogs no they're not cats and dogs and they're not humans and they're not human children but like i think like for me making that connection even stronger would be like when i was still like not connected to animals would be would be like to put a human in their position to put a dog in their position and then reevaluate that with with the different species in there and go wow this is a lot more horrific without my conditioning that these animals are just food have you seen the the i only saw it this week on social media the the milking of the nuts it's like a it's like a what do you call it like a spoof advert and then their milk and the almonds and it's it's incredible because it's this lunacy that people believe about the cows and the calves and they're playing it out with the almonds and you think oh this is so incredibly stupid and of course it actually is you've listened to this rubbish about what the farmers tell you about them the cows and the calves and now they love them and oh this is terribly sad and if something's terribly sad you stop doing it don't you know you you you just there's alternatives there these are the people who are sitting on the assets they're sitting on the land yeah they can change tomorrow you know yeah so yeah let them do it yeah i do you feel that if it really if they really felt that it was that bad they would just immediately stop exploiting and impregnating and making money off these animals every time they like the first time they took them to the slaughterhouse or sent them off to be killed you know that that would be the time where they go wow there's something inherently wrong about this i've got to stop without a doubt yeah if you if you felt anything was wrong you'd stop it now you wouldn't be saying i'm going to send a percentage of them off and you know whatever and do this on a smaller scale or i'm going to try and give them more room or i'm not going to milk them as much you would stop doing it now if you really believe it but sadly it's all down to the the old dollar isn't it you know the old pound note that's it and there's there's so much they can do they're sitting on the assets they're sitting on the farms they can change people do all the time you know dairy farmers change to beef farmers beef farmers change to sheep farmers well they can just start growing things can't they industry's changed like i was thinking about the mining industry fiona was telling me that her father could become redundant because the mining industry went down and you know industries go down all the time things change all the time and if you're a lucrative you know savvy business person you can find other ways to make money you know yeah absolutely and they're sitting on the assets you look at the machinery they use which costs hundreds of thousands of pounds not tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of pounds they have the money they have the assets they've got the land they can do it it's like get on with it you know what i feel like is a really crazy psychology that i i'm trying to understand is that they can feel that it's wrong in in their heart but everyone's telling him this is normal and they're brought up and there's other farmers and they're saying no no this is fine this is just the way it is and so maybe that's that's going against what their heart is telling them you know maybe as a child their their father was a dairy farmer and they first saw this happening and so it's like really conditioned into their psychology for them to go against what they know is wrong there'd have to be some heavy things going on in their mind i'm not going to cut them that kind of credit um i i they know it's wrong it's all it's all economics you know they're it buys them the new car it buys them the the place they want to live the holiday that's that's what it is i mean you know we can you know there are things that all of us have done which weren't right you know and we all go this is not right today is the day of change you know you can't and it didn't involve hundreds of thousands of animals them looking in our eyes and thinking oh boy you know maybe this is wrong maybe this is wrong yeah you know i mean you know occasionally i do it i have a deer in and i do a deer release and i've nurtured that deer and i've loved it and i've brought it back and uh i take it off to where it has to go and i let it go and i let it out the box and the carrier and off the deer goes into the wood and just as it's about to disappear it kind of looks back it looks back at me and it destroys my soul because i think my god there's all this out there you know it's it's life's in its own little pause now that's that's something but imagine those farmers every time they take their beloved animals that have lived with them for seven or eight years to slaughter what don't any of them ever look back and think those cows look back and think what are you doing to me man what you're doing to me where am i going i can hear all that in there they must you know so those farmers are cold i'm not going to cut them any credit i'm afraid i definitely understand that but i because i'm me i'm trying to put myself in their perspective but it makes total sense if animals are looking at you and they know animals better than most people better than most like and i think when vegan activists make you know bring these things up we're saying something that's very true and the farmers want to keep it secret because they don't want people to know that that this is an inherently cruel and you know they they don't want us talking about the slaughterhouse they want to talk about the green pasture that they have and the room the animals have and what could nick their dairy cows are in what could condition these dairy cows are in they don't want us talking about the slaughterhouse so something in their heart knows it's wrong and we we represent that voice of truth that they're trying to keep stifled and trying to keep silent so yeah i totally understand that and when you when you think about all the animals that you've had to you know because you're on the front lines just you you experience day-to-day what animals are like you know their personalities farmers do too they know very well that these animals don't want to die yeah without a doubt i mean from from the age of 10 to about 19 i was always in um livery yards with my sister had a pony and that's how i've got my first rescued horses because they were going to be put to sleep and i would watch horse after horse be shot because people couldn't sit on their backs anymore they couldn't ride them so i thought i i knew this was this was normal to me these horses were being shot i knew it was wrong and as soon as i had my horses and only five percent of people were killing their horses by injection at this time whereas 95 percent of people were shooting their horses i still said why i wouldn't shoot the dog you know i wouldn't shoot the duck or the cow i'm not going to shoot the horse so when only five percent of the population was put into sleep by injection we put our horses to sleep by injection it would have been so easy to have run with the rest but we knew it was wrong so we weren't going to do it you know and to this day we don't shoot any of our animals they're all put to sleep by injection so you can argue all you want that people have had all of these um indoctrinations but actually you people know what's right and wrong and to see those individual animals that you know when they see the farmer going up the field the those cows bellow out to them because for whatever reason you know they must have a relationship but they're just unfortunately they're just hard they're just cold you know wow yeah definitely and um i just hope more of them start to act you know responsibly with these animals and start letting you know i think the more the more that this becomes socially unacceptable and we start calling out this unethical behavior uh they won't be able to do this anymore they will be ashamed of doing it and i think that's where we've got to reach a point where people become ashamed to treat animals like this because hey they've got voices now you know you can't abuse these animals anymore because you're going to have to deal with us yeah absolutely and that's happening isn't it that's happening all the time not just on an animal point of view but i mean people talk about the health you know of eating animal products and what it's doing to people we know about the environment the environment is you know it's in the media every day every time you turn on there's something else about the media and it's all linked to agriculture you know it's kind of like there's some silly post but up the other day about um agriculture's been like this for 10 000 years and has not had any um impact on the environment it's like a 10 000 years ago there was not seven billion people on this earth do you know what i mean it's like now you've now got you know however many people eating that diet we know it's going to impact what are you talking about it's like they're fools absolutely so it's happening every day and i'm so grateful i'm alive to watch it you know it's kind of like amazing it's growing it's growing so from here on out i mean we've been talking about the ethical implications of animal products and the animals that are rescued and there might be some people at home or some even some vegans at home wondering how they can help out like what you know some people can't do what i do get out there in the street some people can't have a sanctuary is there any way that you know people at home might be able to help you with some of your ventures here yeah absolutely so um first of all you can look at our social media or our website we've got a wonderful new website and basically you can come and stay in our lodges because we've got holiday lodges that people can come and stay in and you can help out we've got a vegan cafe which is open most of the year closed the first of december reopens end of march and we've got a wish list you can we've got a crowd funder at the moment to buy the farm next door you can donate to that and if you can't donate you can share that page you know share it with your friends you never know the other day someone picked up a flyer in a vegan cafe and donated a thousand pounds wow so you never know where you're going to share where you're going to leave the leaflets so this is this is incredible this is the power of just doing something you know and secondly you can sponsor animals you can adopt animals yeah yeah there's huge amounts you can do so yeah and just come and visit and meet the animals no charge first you friday sat in sunday 12 to 4 we're open amazing and they could bring family members that aren't yet vegan to connect with the animals absolutely that's what we want you know because we hear people say once you meet them you can't eat them and that's a great it's a great saying because who in their right mind is going to come and see these really kind gentle animals and then go home and just what fry off a pork chop and eat it really very unlikely um it might happen but it's very it's a lot less likely to happen once you've met the victims of you know the food choices we make yeah absolutely and i think you know once you come to a place a lot of people come here because they were not vegan so we have about 70% of visitors who come who are not vegan because it's almost like they think it's like a free day out yeah but it's the start of their we open their eyes so they take a leaflet they go and they google something they change they've enjoyed the food you know they've met the animals so it's a start you know so we're very grateful and there's signs everywhere with little quotes and phrases on there that get people thinking and the food is absolutely amazing so it's all linked it's like here are the victims here are the alternative foods here are some phrases to get you thinking here's what you can do to help yeah and also they get to me a lot of really lovely people on top of it who are already vegan who are not dying of protein deficiency you know these these are really great people that just doing you know ultra runners american runners these people who are fit yeah you know this is you know this is for everyone it's for everyone different athletic ability is different you know political starts different you know anyone is welcome to be against you know animal abuse i mean it's you don't have to be a particular type of person a hippie or this or that or you know absolutely we're not bothered who comes through that gate because you know whoever comes through that gate is better than who drives past it so you get them in and you can open their eyes you know it'd be the start for them so you know just today we've got some people in the cafe they only come a year ago and now there's three generations in their family that are vegan so you know boom done like that they've met the animals and that's it so it's great thank you so much billy thank you so much to you and your team i'm a very fresh in the movement comparative to you you've been in the movement for a very very long time i want to just give you a very big nod of respect for all the struggles you've been through all the dedication and it's not an easy job this is i would say from perspective this is one of the hardest jobs you can do caring after all these animals and it's like you've got a bunch of children here that you're looking after constantly and i just want to say on behalf of all the animals over the years and but on behalf of the movement thank you so much for all of your work thank you thank you very much thanks so much thank you