Pilot ready to bail out hay to animals

Pilot Chris Ruddy, ready for take-off

PENNINE Helicopters is poised to fly vital aid to stranded and starving farm animals in Saddleworth.

Pilot Chris Ruddy has offered to waive the minimum flight charge of £2,300 to help struggling hill farmers keep their animals alive.

The Diggle-based company is on standby as the possibility of more snow and sub-zero temperatures are forecast for the rest of this week.

The slow thaw which started towards the end of the weekend has not so far been fast enough to give farmers access to their animals.

The aid operation would involve using cargo nets to carry bales of hay and dropping them close to cattle and sheep which have no other way of getting food.

Saddleworth Parish Councillor, Ken Hulme said it was a “very generous offer” which would help farmers whose animals were in genuine danger of starving.

And he blamed council cuts and “dithering and delays” in bringing in experienced local contractors to clear the rural lanes for making a bad situation worse for local hill farmers and others who live high on the Pennines.

“Thank goodness local heroes like Chris Ruddy are prepared to step into the breach,” he said.

Chris’s wife, Julia, who mans the office, explained: “We specialise in environmental work and load-lifting, carrying things on a hook under the helicopter.

“In such a remote area with the weather conditions as they are, there are bound to be farmers who are struggling.

“Everyone tries to help others in times of difficulty, and we are animal lovers.”

Pilot Chris has just returned from Keith in the Grampian area of Scotland in response to an emergency call from whisky distillers Chivas Bros Ltd.

The roofs of 31 warehouses storing expensive whisky barrels had already given way under the weight of snow and ice, and many more were in danger of collapse.

They house more than a million barrels of whisky, each costing £3,000, and Pennine Helicopters wascalled in because of a unique piece of equipment which could save them.

Julia, explained: “We have the only two fire-fighting buckets in the country with the capacity to spray finely.”

The £10,000 operation, carried out on Friday, involved a tanker carrying a calcium chloride solution — similar to watered down salt — siphoning it into the 500 litre buckets.

The helicopter made repeated flights over the warehouses, depositing the de-icer on the roofs to melt the snow and ice.