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The journey begins. Demonstrations and blockades have succeeded in halting many of the transport routes to the continent, but ports like Grimsby, Kings Lynn, Brightlingsea, Shoreham and Plymouth are all part of the trade in live animals. Smaller, provincial airports have also been used, the now infamous Coventry airport was one, but calves also flew to Europe from Swansea.

Once in transit, the feeding and watering of the animals can often be neglected and at the height of the recent furore over live exports, French Government vets threatened to turn back shiploads of calves unless conditions were improved.

Over 400,000 calves are exported to Europe every year to be placed in veal crates. They are the unwanted by-product of Britain's dairy industry. After the artificially inseminated cow gives birth, her offspring face a number of fates. If they are female and resemble their mother, they will remain in the dairy herd for milking, if the females are more like their father they will be reared on a suckler herd for two years and then slaughtered for meat. If the calves are a male, they may still be in with a chance of going to the suckler herd but by and large they will end up on the boat to Europe.

Britain is the third largest milk producer in the EU, churning out 14 billion litres per year, over 5,000 litres per year for every one of the 2.7 million cows we keep in our diary herd. In 1993 41,600 dairy farms in the UK exported calves at a value of around 95,000 pounds. A sobering though for the many vegetarians who continue to consume dairy products is that without the birth of a calf, there would be no milk. The odds are stacked against that calf from day one - it is more likely to become meat than get milked.

When veal crates were banned from the UK in 1990, many involved in livestock farming were relieved to see the back of what is arguably the most cruel practice in modern farming. Battery cages, sow stalls and tethers have all shocked and horrified us, but it is the veal crate which has most upset an increasingly aware public.

And with good reason. After about two weeks in the crate the calf cannot lie down properly or turn around. He will live for another 24 weeks or so before being taken for slaughter. Those weeks will be spent standing up or attempting to lie down on a slatted wooden floor which has no straw or bedding. The crate is kept bare in this way to ensure that the meat is just as our veal-eaters would like it, pale and white. Straw would be too much of a temptation for a virtually anaemic young calf, if eaten it would turn his flesh to a healthy red.

White veal is produced by giving the young calf a diet low in the fibre it so desperately needs as it is growing. Milk powder is mixed with water at around 42 Degrees Centrigade, and the iron content is kept at a minimum, again to ensure that the flesh stays white. This thin, warm gruel is fed to the calf once or twice a day and as the front of the crate is lifted to allow the animal to drink from a bucket, the calf will get a brief glimpse of his fellow animals in their respective crates.

A leading expert in animal welfare, Professor John Webster of Bristol University, has complained that this diet 'completely distorts the normal development' of the calf's stomach. The calves will become desperate for solid food, licking the wooden floor in hunger and even swallowing their own hair. When slaughter approaches, they can be so weak from malnutrition that they are unable to walk unaided to the slaughterhouse lorry.

Though we have banned these crates from the UK we add insult to injury and now transport our animals to crates in Europe, it can come as little surprise that groups like Respect for Animals and Compassion in World Farming have finally succeeded in mobilising public opinion against this trade. The demonstrations at Shoreham, Brightlingsea and Coventry Airport have put a tremendous pressure upon the Tory government to take action and stop our calves being taken to a system we have firmly rejected.

The response from the government has at best been pathetic. Dubbed 'Farmgate' by Mark Lawson in The Independent, the hypocrisy of the government's stance was exposed when it was discovered that the Minister for Agriculture, William Waldegrave, while publicly supporting the views of the animal welfare lobby, was busy exporting calves from his own dairy farm to veal crate systems on the continent.

Before his hidden trade had been revealed, Waldegrave appealed to animal welfare groups to help him as he pressed for a Europe-wide solution to the problem. He was widely quoted after having written to the EC Agriculture Minister; 'I do not like veal crates for the same reason the Government abolished them here. Most dairy farmers, like me, don't like the idea of the way veal animals are inhumanely treated,' he said. After his own links with live export and the veal trade were made public, all the Minister could manage was a washing of his hands; 'Once you have sold them you cannot control what happens to them.'

But 'Farmgate' refused to lie down. William Waldegrave's wife, Caroline, was found to be the co-author of 'Leith's Cookery Bible', a popular cookbook which takes its name from Pru Leith's prestigious cookery school of the same name. The 'Bible' includes 18 recipes for veal, and in the text Caroline Waldegrave is at pains to make sure that her readers get their hands on the very best quality veal; 'Do not worry if there is a lot of gelatinous tissue around the meat as this is a natural characteristic of a very immature animal. Dutch veal is generally considered to be the best.'

Veal remains on our menus, and cookbooks like Mrs Waldegrave's continue to promote its use, but here in the UK, our consumption of veal has dropped to a minuscule amount - just 2,100 tonnes per year. France leads the field in veal consumption, with our Gallic friends eating 314,000 tonnes every year.

The French in particular seem to be a little bemused by the British complaints over veal and live export. Though French groups like the Alliance Vegetarien and A.I.D.A. have staged their own demonstrations, their actions are, when compared to the support given to those at Brightlingsea and Shoreham, isolated protests.

It is worth remembering also that it is not just calves who suffer the torture of transport. Other animals such as sheep and pigs also suffer terribly. One destination for these may be the slaughterhouses of Spain, now infamous for their practice of slaughter without proper stunning.

The trade from Britain is increasing dramatically, and it may be the increasingly obvious truckloads of animals on our roads and motorways which have brought the live export issue to a head. Seeing a butcher's van is unpleasant enough, but a truck full of hundreds of suffering animals is too much even for the most hardened amongst us.

The treatment of animals being transported within the European Community has been exposed through a string of video releases, one of the most well known, Road to Misery by Compassion in World Farming shows a bull with a broken hip in Croatia being repeatedly prodded in the genitals with an electric goad. His cries of pain continue for an excruciatingly long period of time until it is obvious he cannot get up. At this point he is shackled by one leg, dragged from the ship and then dropped onto the quay. The operators then change their minds and decide to 'lose' the animal at sea, so he is scooped up by a forklift truck and dumped back onto the ship, banging his head against the ship on the way.

Another piece of video footage which haunts those who have seen it came from Romania. Cattle which are too weak to move are being hoisted from a transport ship by crane. A chain is attached around the horns of one animal, and while he is in the air, the skin on his head tears, his horns break and he falls two metres to the ground. Unable to use his back legs, he is left on the quayside in the freezing cold for 24 hours.

Are we in Britain so unique in our horror at live transport and the veal crate system? Do we stand any chance of banning a practice in Europe which some of our European partners view as completely straightforward and natural? If the other members of the European Union are completely unmoved by notions of animal suffering, what can we do to ensure that our farmers play no part in a system we here in Britain despise so completely?

It is at this point that huge chunks of Euro-legislation start getting flung around by the various players in the debate. The crucial piece of legislation in question is the Treaty of Rome. This treaty is basically a charter for free trade, and while it makes some concessions to environmental concerns, it does nothing to safeguard the welfare of animals. Farm animals are classified in Annex II of the treaty not as 'sentient beings' but as agricultural 'goods', consequently, their ill-treatment is of no greater concern than that of lawnmowers or television sets.

Our government has claimed that under Article 34 of the Treaty of Rome they cannot restrict exports to any other Member State, and so cannot ban the live export trade. Compassion in World Farming, who have battled long and hard against the treaty, point out that Article 36 states that an EU country can place restrictions on exports where they can be justified on grounds of 'public morality, public policy, [and] the protection of health an life of humans and animals.' The government's reply is that Article 36, conveniently for the exporters, cannot be employed in this case.

Other than a ban on live exports, groups like Respect for Animals and Compassion in World Farming have demanded that convicted welfare abusers should be suspended, not fined as at present, that the classification of animals as goods be changed to 'sentient beings' and that journey times should be limited to a maximum of eight hours.

If the demonstrations continue, if letters continue to be written to MPs and MEPs, then success must lie ahead for those wishing to see an end to live export. The tragic death of one protester, Jill Phipps, beneath the wheels of a livestock wagon has done nothing to diminish or frighten off the protesters, if anything, they are more determined. Though the tabloid-media-circus swings from support for animal rights to labelling us 'boot-boys in balaclavas' or 'cuddly terrorists', popular opinion is now against the live export trade and against the veal crates to which we send our calves. An end to these practices cannot be far off, though it may take a change of government to bring it about. The future is beginning to look a little brighter.

Much was made by the media of the fact that some of the protesters at Shoreham or Brightlingsea were not vegetarian or vegan but just 'ordinary' members of the public. 'Ordinary' members of the public wanted to demonstrate, but will this affect their choice of food?

We will not know until the release in April of the next Realeat/Gallup survey on vegetarianism in the UK whether the live export debate has increased the levels of vegetarianism measurably, but it has to be a strong possibility. Given that almost half the population are now cutting down on the meat they eat, the sympathy for a vegetarian diet has never been greater. The Vegetarian Society's recent Vegetarian Vitality report has sweetened the pill still further, by showing vegetarians to be much healthier than the general population.

Most vegetarians state that their vegetarianism began as a gradual move away from meat and was then confirmed by some sort of 'conversion' moment; a discussion with a friend, a magazine article, a documentary or a Vegetarian Society leaflet. The sight of hundreds of distressed calves being loaded onto lorries and driven into the night must result in a huge surge for vegetarianism in the UK, but it may go further.

The veal crate system and the export of calves are an integral part of Britain's dairy industry. Here in the UK, much of our beef continues to come from the offspring of dairy cows. Calves conceived through artificial insemination are born simply to keep their mothers in lactation.

The cheaper cuts of beef and a large proportion of the burgers, pies and sausages containing beef come from the clapped-out dairy cows themselves, exhausted after five or six years on the farm, probably suffering from udder infections and gait problems from constant milking, they are taken away for slaughter.

As you can see, dairy production is completely intertwined with the systems we have all been objecting to so strongly. It is not just meat-eaters who will have to examine their dietary habits, those vegetarians who continue to consume dairy products will, through the recent veal controversy, have to come to terms with the fact that though their diet might be friendlier, it's still not cruelty-free.

Many of the facts for this article have been taken from the excellent new book by Peter Stevenson, the Political Director of Compassion in World Farming and one of the most influential figures in the campaign against live exports. A Far Cry from Noah charts the chequered history of the live export trade and powerfully indicts a crass and incompetent Ministry for Agriculture. The forward, written by Joanna Lumley, invites us to rage when we discover the full truth about animal exportation.