Antigone -- Respect!

So I became a vegetarian aged 11.  My thinking was that I loved animals and cared not so much about killing them to eat -- after all plenty of animals kill for food.  It was more that it was wrong to keep animals solely for the purpose of making a profit from them and then ending their lives in a way that would induce suffering. 

This I imagined would generally involve a trip in a van  followed by slaughter that would be incredibly stressful.  Poor animals suffering adrenaline inducing fear with nowhere to expend it.  At least an antelope can use its survival instinct to run away I argued and if caught will have died trying to escape.  The horror of a flock of sheep in a van going off to slaughter still fills me with revulsion.

For a while I put this to the back of my mind and stood by the argument that it is fine to eat well kept animals who have had the dignity of a good life so between the age of 20 and 22 I ate organic meat, delighting in the opportunity to slow roast and stew and indulge my palate for that deeply savoury, richness that can only come from red meat.

However, I wasn’t comfortable with myself and from 22 to 40 I was once again a lacto/ovo vegetarian.  

What happened at 40? 

Well I became mum to my wonderful strapping son and being a new mum to a much wanted child who hadn’t been easily come by I was determined to do all I could to nuture him according to the super dooper fantastic mummy manual – the one we all read and then threw at the wall 6 weeks down in disgust because the baby wouldn’t follow it.  

So I breast fed my boy on the hour for 40 minutes at a time.  When there was no more to give I would put him in his pram and walk for an age to get him to sleep.  Then we’d arrive home and the cycle would start again seemingly without break, day into night, into day.   About  6 weeks into this I saw an advert on the telly for steak and my exhausted, iron depleted body roared like a lion.  We had steak and chips that night and boy did I need it.

Well 5 years on and I’m not nearly as exhausted and ready to think about resuming my meat free life.   There are many reasons, and I wont blog them now, that wasn’t my intended point.

My point was to rail at the utter crass stupidity of some of my noxious work colleagues.  I happened to mention that I’d become veggie again and wondered aloud whether the scotch broth served in the works canteen that day was meat free. 

I was instantly subjected to an aggressive attack along the lines of “oh I couldn’t do that”, “rather you than me”, “do you eat fish though?”, “ah but aren’t you wearing leather shoes?”    I hadn’t invited commentary on my lifestyle simply by asking if the soup was veggie. I regret the query, to put it mildly!

When I was 16 we studied Anouilh’s Antigone for French A Level.  I massively identified with the anti-heroine.  A young girl who stubbornly insists that she will stand up for what’s right, even if it does no-one living any good.   There’s a wonderful scene in which she describes the stupidity of her guards, with their chapped hands and bovine looks, drinking and thinking of nothing but playing cards.

Antigone  - respect!!!

Then and now.


Unfortunately I have to work with their ancestors :(