ALF book extract

[Guest guest]

* " I've probably been at my lifelong happiest and saddest in the environment

and very scared too. I can't think what I would rather have been doing were

it not this, despite the invited trauma and ever present risk of serious

physical harm. I've fallen from a building and through a roof, jumped

through a first floor window and swum a river in a pair of wellies and then

had to get on a bus, dripping wet and beg a free ride! I've been shot at

while trying to rescue animals; I've put my own car window through a ball

bearing that bounced back off someone else's property; I've been spat on,

punched and driven at, covered in a bucket of elephant piss by an angry

clown, chased through woodland by men with spades and arrested, charged and

convicted for things I haven't done. I've felt utter despair and been driven

to distraction - and action - by the endless procrastinating and

indifference of officialdom and I've been locked in prison and made to go

without food because of my objections to the abuse of animals.*

* All this aside from the indescribable suffering and cruelty I've witnessed

first hand. But it's precisely that, and being able to do something about

some of it, that has made it all worthwhile. These close calls are nothing;

the lucky breaks and confrontations recharge my batteries rather than drain

me, as, of course, do the victories in every life saved or opinion altered.

The angrier I see the people I oppose and listen to their reasons for what

they do, the more I empathise with the animals they are messing with and

feel compelled to act. My only regret is getting caught. It has given me a

voice but taken away the anonymity that allowed me to take those risks. I

have a lot to say, but I preach that words are cheap and actions are

everything. Allow me this lengthy contradiction.*

* Being unable or unwilling to ignore the reality of animal suffering has

got me into no end of trouble and strife but I think has played a part in

alleviating and preventing some of it. I can't imagine that winning ten

World Cup competitions would give me anything like the same satisfaction I

feel after convincing someone to stop encouraging slaughterhouses and

factory farms or by placing a neglected animal in a safe loving home for the

rest of its life on Earth. I have never hurt anyone for being cruel but have

defended myself when under attack and have done a lot of things to help

desperate animals to which I can't confess, not out of any sense of shame

but because I'd be arrested and sent to prison. That this happens to people

like me in a nation of animal lovers never ceases to amaze me as does the

fact this nation treats other animals so appallingly. I write this book to

document not so much my journey but that of a movement of people just like

me who want to make the world a better place for all.*

**

* - From Dusk 'til Dawn by Keith Mann*

* Puppy Pincher Press*

* London*

* 2007*