SCHOOLBOY Jon Fraser came home yesterday to the farm where the two pet sheep he had bought with his pocket money had been slaughtered, along with 350 other animals.

Fifteen-year-old Jon had been sent away from the farm at Wolsingham, in Weardale, County Durham, last Thursday as soon as it was confirmed that the animals would have to be killed, because they were in a foot-and-mouth danger zone.

His mother, Angie, was worried that Jon would be traumatised by the culling and burning of the animals, including his two Texel ewes, Bessie and Elsie.

She sent him to stay with relatives at South Shields, on Tyneside.

Jon had bought the two sheep for £40 each with money he had saved from helping with grouse shoots on the Weardale moors earlier in the year.

As he walked through the farm gates, he said: "In one way, it is nice to be coming back home, but not in another.

"When I bought the two sheep, I never thought that they would end up like this.

"I'm trying to come to terms with what has happened to them."

But Jon said he was still keen to carry on with his ambition to become a farmer and he will be helping his mother and her partner, Robin Anderson, rebuild their farm - one of three in the Wolsingham area where healthy animals have been culled because they were near a confirmed case of the disease.

His mother said: "Jon loves his life on the farm, and when we found out that the animals would have to be killed, we decided we could not put him through that ordeal.

"The two ewes were his first attempt at being a farmer, and meant a great deal to him."

She said the experience of losing all their stock had been heart-breaking and terrible to watch.

"It's too early to start thinking about the future," she said. "We will have to let the wounds heal first."