Bovine Rhapsody

The clocks went back today and consequently I found myself awake earlier than usual. On the news I caught a brief clip of Brian May saying that his band, Queen, will not play the Glastonbury Festival due to his disagreement with Michael Eavis about the culling of badgers and Michael having been rude to him. 

     

Brian and Michael

This conflict has been in the public domain for some years, but it was sad to hear it being ramped up. It joined the ebb and flow of news, slowly receding under the influence of other news and arguments - the arrest of a man for the murder of 39 migrants suffocated in the back of a lorry; the probable assassination by US special forces of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS; Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings; and more of the background hum that has become Brexit - and I went in search of something more uplifting.  Flicking through the options I alighted on the Parliamentary channel and found myself watching a debate on Bovine TB. I thought 'this is a sign…' and watched a lot more than I would have predicted with my mind bouncing back and forth between cattle, the festival and 1974.

I was on tour with Queen in 1974 (got the tee shirt - literally).  It was their first headline tour and  Brian was one of the nicest people there.

They don't make them like this anymore

Nice is not faint praise, it is a good thing, and when shown to a lowly member of the support band's crew, a rare quality. Like me, he is a collector of industry memorabilia. As well the tee shirt, I had kept my negatives taken at the Finsbury Park Rainbow on the 1974 tour Sheer Heart Attack Tour for 40 years thinking 'one day I'll find a use for them...'.  I believe Brian was instrumental in the decision to buy four of them for the box-set released of the show a few years ago. It is a source of satisfaction that some of my pictures will live on in this collection. All in all I am well disposed to Brian. 

Smoke and mirrors

I have worked at the festival for over 30 years and know Michael to be a thoroughly decent man with strong moral values. His love of his cattle is evident to anyone who has ever dealt with him, and he will tell one and all that if he had to choose between the herd and the festival, the herd would win every time, without a shadow of doubt. He is a farmer devoted to his herd. Farmers are intensely practical people and have a reputation for being pragmatic individuals who deal with life and death every day. To see his cattle in danger of contracting TB threatens the most important thing in his working life. Like most of us he is not a scientist, and despite having a deep and abiding interest in the topic, has to take advice on protecting his beloved herd from somewhere. That he has been persuaded by the cull option does not make him a bad man, any more than Brian’s objection to the cull makes him as a naive townie blinded by his deep respect for animals. 

Back on TV the MPs and experts opinions expressed in the parliamentary debate were as passionate and divided as those of Brian and Michael. They exchanged statistics and opinions with varying degrees of diplomacy, but never came to verbal blows. Brian and Michael are civilised and honourable men, and their ’row’ has the hallmarks of a family argument. It is a disagreement between people who share a great love of both animals and music. The passion of their clash has taken on a destructive power in which neither of them takes any delight nor, I believe, either of them intended.  It is so sad that their seemingly irreconcilable differences have, we are told, led Micheal to be rude, a quality very few would attribute to him in the normal course of events - and has led Brian to refuse the pleasure of playing to one of the best audiences on the planet, from the iconic Pyramid stage. We have all known that awful feeling that persists after the bad words have been spoken to someone we should really get on with. Of course, it has been known for family rows end up in lifelong feuds which solve nothing - but is is usual for differences to be resolved.  I believe, in their hearts, both Michael and Brian would prefer a resolution to an eternal hostile stand-off. And most family rows are resolved by working to remove the problem with compromise or a change of mind.

Man and badger in perfect harmony

And to this end I make the modest proposal that Brian and Michael do all these things. The compromise is that they put previous clashes behind them. Then put some of their not inconsiderable resources into alternative ways to protect cattle from bovine TB. And Brian could change his mind about Queen playing the festival. I’d go to see that. I do not know how this would work, but I’m sure both of them would welcome the end to TB in both cattle and badgers, it has to be worth a try. It would also do what both of them have spent much of their lives doing, promoting a better, kinder world where aggression and bitter disputes have no place. And to do so in public would be an example to us all, leaving no trace of TB or animosity. Champion!