LIFE came to a standstill for John and Joy Layfield 150 days ago, when ministry vets confirmed their farm was infected with foot-and-mouth disease.

Five months later, the fields are still eerily silent and the trauma of hearing that their 800 sheep and several hundred cattle had to be slaughtered has still not left them.

Many of the ewes destroyed on Nackshivan Farm, near Oakenshaw, County Durham, were pregnant or had just given birth.

The farm is category A status, which means nothing can be moved on or off the premises. Even the bales of hay which would have fed the cattle must stay rotting in the fields.

Mrs Layfield, 67, said: "When it happened it was traumatic. The vet confirmed at 8pm, on March 24, that we were infected. Then the house was full of people in white coats.

"It was sleeting and my husband wanted to go down to the buildings. He said he had to because the animals were calving. He came back up to the house and he just broke down."

Even when their category A status is relaxed, it could be at least four months before they can restock.

They will miss the crucial September markets - when they usually buy their livestock - and the October lamb breeding season.

The outbuildings will also have to be partially rebuilt, because the cleaning process required all the plywood and linings in the outbuildings to be removed.

It is a lot of work for a couple, both past retirement age, who are isolated on their farm.

Mrs Layfield said: "For the first month I couldn't go out. We went to a friend's funeral and that was it.

"Our friends are mainly farmers and we can't go to their farms and they can't come to us."

Read more about the foot-and-mouth crisis here.