“There are fears that it won’t be long before the county falls victim to foot and mouth,” says the radio.In myriad ways, it already has. There are no burning pyres of cattle or sheep, but the longer the crisis continues, the more it is poisoning life in Shaftesbury and neighbouring Blackmore Vale, Hardy’s “vale of small dairies”, where Tess of the D’Urbervillesbegins.”It is impossible to overstate the fear this has caused,” said Fanny Charles, editor of the weekly Blackmore Vale Magazine, known as the BVM. “Some families have kept apart to reduce the risk of infection, and it is beginning to get them down. Everyone wonders how long it will go on.”Living under the shadow of foot and mouth means absences – of traffic, of people walking the countryside, and of livestock at Shaftesbury market, where Simon Whaley, a director of Southern Counties Auctioneers, is standing in the deserted ring. On a Thursday he would expect to auction 400 to 450 “store cattle” – calves to be grown for beef or breeding – but the markets have been closed and virtually all movement of animals banned “People are keeping their heads down,” he said.

“No one is going out unnecessarily, for fear of being the one who brings infection The farmers round here feel imprisoned. You could call it a siege mentality.”The sad irony for his business is that it would earn more money if there was an outbreak, because it would be called in to help assess compensation for farmers. As it is, the company has laid off about a dozen part-time employees in Shaftesbury. “We can’t hold out very long,” said Mr Whaley, who has spent all his 46 years in and around the town.David Hardiman, 63, is another with deep local roots.

He is managing director of the only company he has ever worked for, CB Morgan (Shaftesbury). A haulage firm with 12 vehicles, it immediately lost almost a fifth of its business when transport of livestock was restricted, and much of the rest is under threat. “If we get a sniff of a load as far away as Glasgow we take it,” said Mr Hardiman, “but many other companies are in the same position, and we are undercutting each other.”The longer this goes on, the more it is eating into our business. The Badminton Horse Trials were cancelled, which lost us work from one of England’s biggest marquee companies.

In summer they would keep us busy taking equipment from one fair to another, but now they are being postponed or cancelled. Soon it will be very serious for everybody.”By now, tourists should be appearing in Shaftesbury, attracted by its hill-top setting and its literary and historical associations. A fortified town since Saxon times, it has the ruins of a nunnery founded by Alfred the Great, and Gold Hill, where the famous Hovis ad was filmed. But restaurant and pub takings are down, and bed and breakfast bookings have dried up “We are all feeling the effects,” said one local landlady.

“The only visitors I have had were those who booked before foot and mouth. The most worrying thing is that I have had nothing for Easter or the rest of April, just a few people asking whether everything might be back to normal in June.”At the tourist information centre the woman behind the counter said: “For many farming families, the b&b trade is no longer the jam, but the bread and butter. This is hitting them hard.” On Thursdays the Tudor- style town hall and street outside ought to be full of stalls for the farmers’ market, their other main means of diversification. Today there are a few tables of second-hand clothes, a fish van and one man selling cheese, who tells a customer: “After this week I probably won’t be able to come back until it’s over.” Nobody needs to be told what “it” is, or why R&C Humphries ironmonger’s has a sign in the window that reads: “We have Jeyes Fluid in stock.”"All this is bad enough,” Fanny Charles said over lunch at an almost-deserted King Alfred’s restaurant, “but for the farmers it is coming at the end of an almost Biblical succession of disasters, from BSE to floods. Every day you hear about new side-effects, such as a delivery driver for a fishing tackle firm who was put on half-time. Why? Because the Environment Agency has closed its waters, and many river banks are right next to pastures, so fishermen are not welcome “It keeps rippling out Longleat has delayed opening, which will have a huge impact. A lot of people work there, and it attracts many of the visitors who stay locally.”A few miles away Geoffrey Miller is keeping an anxious eye on his herd of about 200 dairy cows and 175 assorted heifers and beef cattle.