First I must acknowledge two main written sources: Nick Clark, Gone West: Ukrainians at Work in the UK (TUC 2004), and Felicity Lawrence, Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate (Penguin 2004). Their thorough research was my starting point, but any shortcomings are entirely my own.
Many other people helped with specific information, including Ben Beneste, Cathy Dean, and Kate Fenton (dogs), Charles Gaskin (strawberries), Joyce da Silva of Compassion in World Farming, Richard Churcher (chickens), Dave Feickert (coal mining and trade unions), Sonia Lewycka (Malawi), and Simon Pickvance of Sheffield Occupational Health Project.
Thanks are also due to Bill Hamilton and everyone at AM Heath for encouragement and sound advice, to Juliet Annan and Scott Moyers for many helpful comments on the text, and to the team at Penguin for being so great.
Thanks also to the O’Brien family, who took me strawberry picking, to Bob and Doris Spencer at Gara Bridge, where we stayed in both trailers, and to Jos Kingston, who introduced me to Paddy, the original Dog.
Finally I would like to thank Beatrice Monti della Corte and the Santa Maddalena Foundation for a wonderful working retreat, and Judith and Pasquale Rosato, without whose generosity and kindness at a time of crisis this book would never have been possible.
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