Cow pats to help crisis

A student is turning cow pats into life-size ceramics to increase awareness of the impact of foot-and-mouth disease and to help farmers hit by the crisis.

Gillian Bathe is a former crofter who is now studying for a degree in three-dimensional design at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design University College.

She selects cow pats based on their shape and casts them in bone china clay, which contains a proportion of beef bone.

Ms Bathe says that the vitrified white china depicts the sterility of life in farms where cattle have been slaughtered. She will donate half of any money made to a farmers' charity.