Review: Foot and Mouth film will bring back haunting memories for Yorkshire farmers

The characters of Michael and Jeffrey are fictitious but the events and the emotions this film portrays were very real twenty-two years ago. Ask any farmer, particularly in the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. Even now you will still see tears come back into the eyes of those who recall the cacophony of gunshots ringing around their farms as their stock was destroyed and the stench of funeral pyres that burned throughout the dales.

I saw the film last week. I simply had to go having published farming magazines for Yorkshire and Cumbria, the county that suffered more than any other. Back then I witnessed first-hand how the fear, the hurt and despair decimated life in the countryside and in some cases led to loss or near loss of human life as farmers and their families struggled to cope.

I can understand some not wanting to watch the film because of the memories it will bring back that have perhaps rightly been consigned to a cupboard drawer in their minds, but this is, for all that, an extremely sensitive and accurate depiction of the trauma and devastation felt by the farming community.

It doesn’t sugarcoat what happened, but it is also not a documentary. It is not all about Foot & Mouth. It is about a long-term companionship that develops between Michael, who has lost his wife to cancer just a short while prior to the events that unfold and Jeffrey, who is struggling with a marriage that isn’t working.

The two exceptional actors provide a warmth and humour that manages to convey the feelings of those involved in farming at the time. Farmers watching it will feel Michael’s pain, but they will also smile at the words he comes out with for the man who he starts the film by calling ‘Herriot’.

Are you going to enjoy the film simply as a film? I would say yes. It’s not often that farming is featured in a feature film and so accurately, right down to the breath coming from the cattle in the shed to the humour that always exists in farming no matter what is thrown at the community.

And Then Come The Nightjars is a film that will bring back painful memories to many, but it is also a beautiful, touching and heartfelt movie that is deserving of your time.

The film is on general release, but it is worth looking to see whether it is being shown in your area. These are some of the cinemas showing And Then Come The Nightjars that we have managed to find and dates and times (where publicised): Ritz Cinema, Thirsk (Fri 22 to Thurs 28 Sept 7.30pm); Ilkley Cinema (Sun 24 Sept 11.40am; Mon 25 Sept & Thurs 28 Sept 3pm); Wetherby Cinema (Thurs 21 Sept 7.45pm); Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough (Fri 22 Sept 7.45pm; Sat 23 Sept 2.45pm & 7.45pm). Others are in the process of scheduling.