PAT lives each day on a knife-edge. No one is allowed beyond the gate of the family farm, her shopping gets left in the drive, even the postman is banned from entry.

While many may regard the threat of foot-and-mouth disease as a fear that beleaguered farmers have to contend with, Pat's ready to vouch for the fact that she, her grown-up sons and every other farming family, has been going through the wringer too.

It's not just her husband's temperature that rises every time a high wind blows, for fear it may bring with it the poison that's spreading across British farms.

And, of course, it's not only the animals that will suffer if the disease reaches the Dickson's Upsall Grange Farm, near Middlesbrough. Everyone in the household gets infected with sickly feelings of panic, barely-concealed despair and helplessness at the mere thought of foot-and-mouth reaching their doorstep.

Pat's glued to the TV for the next news bulletin but feels sick to the pit of her stomach with every new tiding it brings.

She can barely keep the emotion out of her voice as she describes the consequences of having a deadly threat hanging over her livelihood and her family.

"We're all of us living with the unknown and it fills you with a fear you can't describe. We don't know if the cattle will develop anything, we don't know what steps the Government will take," says Pat, 52.

"It's a time of real anxiety for all of us - that's the case not just for me or my family. I'm not feeling any worse than anyone else. I'm an ordinary farmer's wife trying to get through this and I'm trying to describe how every other farmer's wife and family feels," she says.

Pat goes on to explain how the highs and lows of farming filter down to every member of the family, how no one is left untouched by good or bad news. She turned from full-time nurse to full-time farmer's wife when she married Robin 31 years ago and she' been the wind beneath his wings ever since.

"Farming isn't a nine-to-five job for a farmer who goes off at 9am and comes back holding a paper under his arm at 5pm. It's a big part of my life too. In fact, it's a way of life for us all, we're all involved in it. It becomes your life and defines who you are.

"Inevitably, it affects you and the family if your husband is anxious. I want to emphasise, it's not just our family that is suffering, it's everyone else who lives on a farm.

"We're all going through the same thing and we have to cope because there's no other choice. You just don't allow yourself to dwell on it. You have to keep your socks pulled up and part of my job is to do that.

"And I suppose I'm not one of these people who say life is getting too much. But it's very difficult sometimes, especially when you see your family suffering and upset."

As a mother-of-three and a hands-on wife, Pat's already done her fair share of hand-wringing at the height of the BSE crisis. She stood by as the Government legislated that the beloved dairy cattle her family regarded with as much affection as pets were carted off for wholesale slaughter.

She recalls: "We were one of the later ones that got BSE. I remember the feelings of disbelief and shock to discover our animals had it. The worst moment was seeing them led onto a wagon whether they were in-calf or in-milk and knowing they were going to die. We had 40 cohorts taken in two groups. It was very painful.

"My youngest son David, who is now 22, was doing his GCSEs and he was trying to concentrate on getting good grades while animals that he'd grown up with were having tags put on their ears and being led away to be slaughtered. Our animals have always been part of their lives - we used to show them at agricultural shows and they were really attached to them."

The Dicksons got through the trauma by drawing on each other for emotional strength, as did most other farming families. Yet they find themselves once again in the eye of the storm.

"We lost a lot of our herd through BSE, but the ones we have left are very important to us. As a family that lives close to the affected area, you feel the tension in the air all the time."

The Dicksons were on a restful holiday in the Lake District when they caught news of foot-and-mouth. They got home as quickly as they could and haven't been off the farm since. Their 250-acre Nunthorpe holding is a no-go area for most of the outside world and the couple are living in a paranoid state of self-imposed incarceration with their second son Richard, 26.

But it may be precarious self-protection as foot-and-mouth could reach them via a wandering deer, a flock of crows or even a high breeze.

Pat knows there is no advantage in getting hysterical about the situation but, if there's one message she wants to put across to the countryside-loving public, it is to ask them to stay away until the risk of infection is over.

"I want to make a plea from my heart to everyone just to stay away from the countryside until foot-and-mouth disease has been eradicated in case they unwittingly carry the it further afield," she says.

Although the outbreak of the disease has been a strain on them all, she's nowhere near admitting defeat to it.

"We have to pool our strengths together and get through it. I don't sit with my arms around my family and say 'it's going to be all right'. Luckily, we've always been strong together. We're not suffering more than any other family in farming. We're all trying to work our way out of this and I'm sure it's going to be more impossible for some than for others."

Pat says the strength of the agricultural community lies in the fact that it is close-knit, stoical and emotionally supportive in times of crisis. But how many more crises must it contend with?

"I'm not angry about any of this. I'm just very saddened. We've had to pull tighter on the purse strings although the financial side of farming has been a greater struggle for many other families. For us, it's been a case of house-keeping more carefully.

"But it's not just the financial crisis that upsets us. It's the sadness of waiting and watching to see what happens to the things you've spent most of your life helping to build up."

Her eldest son Iain, 29, and his Canadian wife, Tammy, had already come to the conclusion there's no future in British farming and decided to settle in Canada, even before the foot-and-mouth outbreak occurred.

Pat will sit out the duration of this tortuous scare with as much courage as she can muster and she is consumed by a steely determination to get through it. After all, there's no time for self-pity or despair when you've got a home, a husband and family to be there for.