Arthur Mew on the Slaughterhouse

Ours were slaughtered at Scarrots Lane, Mr Bennett and also the FMC, they were up Horsebridge Hill, you went off up there, I don’t know what it was called that Slaughterhouse but you know.

I would say (they closed) in 1983. The one up Scarrots Lane, probably, no wait a minute, let me get this right. Yes, I think Scarrots Lane probably 1980 and then Hawkesbury was the other one, Hawkesbury .

They closed because the FMC took over Hawkesbury and then they were, I don’t know, FMC they folded or something and it meant that there was no slaughterhouse on the Island then and pigs were not the best thing to travel and I probably, I can’t quite remember. I went up to Cliff Farm in 1983 and I never took no pigs with me so it must have been ’81 or ’82 when the slaughterhouse finished and that was it, you know? Because of the supermarkets.

The Island slaughterhouses, they relied on the family butchers and when the supermarkets came to the Island our slaughterhouse wasn’t big enough to supply a supermarket so it was the supermarkets what killed the slaughterhouses.