Sir, – How many people watch ‘You’ve been framed’? A collection of near misses to an accident, that people find funny, classed as clowning.

How many employees take time off work because of stress? Most are employed in government-related industries, the industries that pay out fantastic pensions!

How many farmers and crofters take time off work under the banner ‘stress’? I would guess none, as they cannot afford to.

Our industry is the most abused by all of the so-called regulators and inspectors, regardless of what task you are doing. According to them ,everything must come to a halt so that you go through the ‘entertainment’ of listening to them tell you how they are going to close you down, take away your cash flow, how you are going to court, and that you must comply to their instruction pronto!

They give no regard that you are looking after hundreds of animals, and that those animals must be fed, or they must not be disturbed as some are giving birth.

Land managers must not show the weakness of stress getting the better of you – we are the heroes that combat everything that is bad, we must take it day in day out, with little or no reward for what we do.

From our efforts we feed people, we keep supermarkets’ shelves full, helping the markets to make millions of pounds out of us! We never take a holiday!

Going back to stress, what is the solution to our dilemma?

During the storm last week a large sheet of metal (10ftx 4ft) came off the roof of the local MOD building. It hung onto a railing and was flapping in the wind. My sheep were in a field adjacent to the building, so I phoned the manager of the site – ‘sorry’ he said, but he cannot put men on the roof to secure it. He quoted chapter and verse of HSE rules, so for the rest of the day and night I had to endure the banging and screeching of the metal sheet. I could have moved my sheep, but to where?

Later I found out that the manager that I phoned was on his way out to a Christmas party! It took them two days before this dangerous object was removed.

I wonder what would happen if a great majority of farmers went off work with stress? Who would look after our charges, what would the urban societies eat, and with the looming Brexit stories of government stockpiling food and medicines. What would be the taste of money?

Angus A Macdonald,

Balivanich, Benbecula