Letter: If the whales die, we will all be the poorer

Sir: My own experience of whale meat (pace Milton Freeman et al; Letters, 3 July) may prove that foisting the stuff on the public could be a many-pronged harpoon in itself.

In mid-1945, once Guernsey had been reclaimed from the Nazis, I was taken to my first boarding school, Elizabeth College in St Peter Port. In those innocent days, before people realised that meat can be the perfect vector for horrible things, fee-paying schools felt a pressing obligation to provide it to their inmates.

With domestic meat in very short supply, we were fed a diet of blood-red whale meat and pressed sheep's brains, the latter looking remarkably like a map of the Moon, the former looking (and tasting) simply uncooked.

It was not long before a junior prefect was stationed at the toilets after meals, because whale meat carted there in blazer pockets had blocked the system.

We soon found an alternative by casting the wretched stuff out of a tower window into a disused area outside the building. Local people came to remark on the congregation of dogs there, but it was assumed to be simply a canine matter.

The long-term result of this gristly (sic) episode was that I have been a confirmed vegetarian ever since.

Yours sincerely

TIM SYMONDS

Devizes,

Wiltshire

3 July