My name is LILO LILL. I am rather an old maid now. I like to sit in the sun out of the wind and reminisce on the past. Mine was quite colorful, I can tell you. I was 8 years old, I think, when I was sent to the Halal slaughter house. This is what happens to ewes when we are no longer commercially viable and have come to the end of our useful lives as far as the industry is concerned anyway. I was in this small lorry. It stopped outside the abattoir and I thought, “This is your last chance girl. It’s make or break time.” So I broke for it and ran down a one way street into the face of the on-coming traffic. Well, I had had no experience of traffic until that moment. I can assure you I soon learnt. I became more adept with traffic in a few seconds than the film crew and crowd of people chasing me had learnt in a life time. It was terribly noisy and smelly. The crowd behind me were shouting at me, at each other and swearing at the traffic. I’d never heard words like that before, not even when the farmer’s dog got it wrong rounding us up, it was quite an eye opener I can tell you. An opening appeared on my left so, to get rid of the mob, I dashed abruptly into it. There was a building on the left that smelt of hops and had a lot of laughter coming through the doors so I went in. I was greeted by complete silence. Obviously not many sheep frequented that particular pub. I later learned that I had gone into the “red light district” whatever that was. To this day I still don’t know. Anyway the people there were very kind. They were a different colour to the ones I’d met before. They let me live in their gardens, eating my way through each one and moving onto the next, and they fed me on something called curry which was easier than grass for me as I’d lost most of my teeth. The curry was excellent and I owe those people my life. They kept me hidden and they kept me alive. One day a person came who took me away from all the red lights and the curry – much to my disappointment – and brought me here to the Sanctuary. The gardens here are much bigger to wander through, there’s no traffic and no slaughter house. Best of all I still get a curry from time to time but I do miss those colourful red lights. Sometimes we have a few strung in the barn at a thing called Christmas but it’s not quite the same. I am enjoying my last years here. Please sponsor me.
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