THE top hats and candles may have signalled a very traditional cortege - but for the mourners their grief was as much about the future as the past.

Farmers from across the North gathered in Tony Blair's Sedgefield constituency yesterday for a symbolic funeral for the livestock killed during the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Led by a funeral car and marching to a sombre drum-beat, some of the 20-odd mourners carried pictures of animal carcasses and placards pleading for the lives of those that remained.

For organiser Elli Logan, of Stop Animal Deaths, Cumbria, it was a chance to voice their concerns about the future of farming.

"It has been a monstrosity, a disaster. The cull of healthy livestock is a disgrace," she told mourners outside Sedgefield's St Edmund's Church.

"We think this cull could, regrettably, be a springboard for what is going to happen next. What are our farmers going to do? How are they going to restock?

"Perhaps they will not be able to restock, possibly the agenda is to reduce the size of the national herd."

Standing at the roadside, waiting to join the cortege as it entered the village, were Robert and Margaret Wood, whose farm at Bishopton, just a few miles away, was culled when neighbouring livestock became infected.

Mr Wood said they lost 700 pigs and sheep, even though their stock had been inside for three weeks and showed no signs of the disease.

"We had all our healthy stock culled, unnecessarily. We are not happy about it at all and there are a lot of people not happy about it," he said. "They were shooting little pigs instead of injecting them."

A stuffed pig sat in the passenger seat of the funeral car on the way into Sedgefield, and it was carried by Ms Logan for the return journey to the outskirts of the village.

Sheltering from the drizzle, a handful of people watched the cortege from shop doorways, including college dinner supervisor Sheila Baister, from Ferryhill.

"I agree with them making a stand. I feel a lot of sympathy for the farmers, I understand how they feel," she said.

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