40 Years of Animal Aid

A look back at humble beginnings, as the largest animal rights pressure group in the UK celebrates its 40^th anniversary

Animal Aid was formed in 1977 by primary school teacher Jean Pink. Her inspiration came from philosopher Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation, which uncovered the truth about factory farms, laboratories and vivisection. Her outrage was shared, and soon a group of likeminded people formed. They travelled to London every Wednesday to give out hand-made leaflets, which highlighted the truth about the torture that animals were suffering. The campaign was a success, and soon Animal Aid groups began forming across Britain rapidly. Jean gave up her job in order to devote all her time to campaigning. She established Animal Aid as a pressure group and set up an office in Tonbridge. This was the beginning of a modern animal liberation movement in the UK.

In 1987 the Living Without Cruelty Exhibition was organised at Kensington Town Hall. It was the first event of its time, and influenced the rise of vegan fairs which are now prominent across the country. This was followed by the Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre launched in 1993, which still takes place annually.

Education was their next focus, having already funded the independent Youth for Animal Rights. They formed the Animal Aid Youth Group in 1986, which spawned a successful and comprehensive campaign to end compulsory dissection for GCSE students.

Some of their most notable achievements include ceasing the sale of horse meat from Ascot, halting the production of a large primate experimenting facility at Cambridge University, and forcing John Lewis to disband its shooting club. One undercover investigation they generated exposed widespread illegal cruelty in slaughterhouses, and even resulted in two men being jailed. At the forefront of this particular campaign was ensuring that the UK’s ten largest supermarkets deal only with slaughterhouses that have CCTV installed.

Animal Aid campaigns against all forms of animal abuse and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle by raising public awareness. They predominantly target the public, MPs and the media to share their message, as well as conducting undercover investigations to expose animal cruelty. Despite receiving no government funding, they provide teaching resources free of charge to schools, funded entirely through donations from members and supporters. Their campaign methods now include demonstrations, events, lobbying, and distributing films, leaflets, posters, factsheets and reports.

Animal Aid has gone from strength to strength, playing a fundamental role in activism for veganism and animal welfare, and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Jean Pink (front) joins demonstrators against animal research at Cambridge Uni. Circa 1980 (all images - credit animalaid.org.uk)

The F word

To the man that called me fat (and all of his predecessors):
thank you.

For making me run a little farther
a little harder
til I crossed the marathon finish line
for helping me wake up at 6am to
run before work
for teaching me the difference between
kindness and bullies.

but
I am tired
of apologising
for taking up extra space.

I am sick
of analysing every cm of my skin
praying for a number on a machine to decrease.

I am done
hating my softness
in a world full of hard.

I officially give up
trying to perfect
what I should already see as perfection.

So thank you
critics, bullies and arseholes
for showing me
that in the face of hate
and cruelty
the answer is always
Love.

Crying over spilt milk

So an EU court has decided that the word ‘milk’ is to solely be reserved for the white stuff that comes from animals. Not only this, but we can no longer use ‘butter’ or ‘cheese’, as these are ‘reserved for products that contain animal-derived dairy’.

Where do we draw the line now? Must we rename nut butters, body butters, lip butters and the like? Is sun-cream only to be named so if it contains dairy?

On the flipside, with the words now banned from dairy-free packaging, it will be a lot easier to navigate the supermarket aisles (especially for newbies).

Dairy-free products have steadily become more and more popular in recent years, owing to many factors including the vegan movement, discovering allergies, and the awakening of many eco-conscious souls (see: Cowspiracy). This has in turn created a deficit for dairy farms, which vegans believe has ignited scare-mongering, of which this new law could be a prime example.

At the end of the day, not calling the soy drink that I put in my coffee by the name ‘milk’ doesn’t make that much of a difference. I’m still calling it soy milk. Sue me. J



Alpro - milking it?

Blogging hiatus

A belated Happy New Year to you and yours.

It is with great regret and sadness that I announce the loss of my beloved father, who we lost on Christmas Day. Due to his suffering, I was absent from my writing, and indeed blogging. But I know he would urge me to return to it as soon as possible. 

So with his smile in my mind, I will return. Thank you for reading my blog, and I do hope you will continue to do so.

Peace and love. xoxo