Julie explains her childhood farm was owned by the local council, so her father had to meet certain conditions. “He had to use chemicals, because if you got too many dock leaves or thistles, they could take money away from you. Paraquat was the pesticide all the farmers used.”
He would carry a backpack filled with the chemical and spend hours hand-spraying the fields. “He would have his sleeves rolled up, his arms bare, the liquid dripping down.”
John developed the disease in his 40s and always believed there was a connection to the chemicals. His suspicion deepened when his neighbour Ken Barnes was diagnosed around the same time – he was also in his 40s and had also been using Paraquat for years.
Ken now visits Julie’s farm. He has a twinkle in his eye, but his clarity of speech has gone. “It’s a horrible disease,” says his wife Sue. “It’s taken his life away.”
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