ONE LITTLE PIGGY
This story is not a fairy story for children, and I suggest it be kept where
kids can't get to it. Also
there could be risque language, and it is written
to give you a mental picture of a situation which to my mind needs to be
addressed so that children can grow up to be normal and loving and not
turn into Jekyll and Hyde characters. I am normal and loving, I don't
know why, well I like to think I am. I am not an authority on bringing up
kids (my wife is) but after what I experienced as a kid, I would like to
hope it would not happen to some other youngster. I was born (not invented)
in the front room of a house on the corner of Brigg Rd, opposite the
George
Hotel and near the Wheat Sheaf pub. While still an infant and like
a newly built computer, I had a brain but it was not yet programmed, so
since it had not been set up yet nothing registered. In other words, I remember
nothing about that particular house. We moved to a place called Thornton
Abbey and slowly my brain began to take in hedges round the house and the
cat, animals in the field, and the pond across the road, the heat of
the sun and the wind in the face. I was programming my own
brain and remembering things and storing them. I don't care if you
say bullshit but I can remember feeding from the breast and also a bottle,
and dirty nappies (diapers).I began to get teeth in time, and got a whack across the
head for biting a hole in the bottle nipple.
The original hole would be so small or the powder that
made up the milk was not properly mixed and a small lump of dried milk
would block the hole. I would bite it to break it up, and split the teat
instead, so the next yuk (swallow) caused me to gag. Now I was gasping for breath,
and I almost drowned. But once I recovered it did not make my mouth so sore,
sucking and getting nowhere. My mother was awake to me and it wasn't long
before there was a new teat on the bottle and I was back to square one.As I
got older I was put in a cot (crib) and my elder sister was in another cot in
the same room.
One day my mum put a book in my cot. Why? I couldn't
even read yet, so I tore out all the pages. They were very thin pages,
it was a Bible I think. On seeing the pages all over the floor, someone whacked
me across the head and I was screamed at. "Naughty boy!" Well
what else did they expect? Since I knew it was not for eating, and since
there were no more pages to tear out, I didn't know what to do with the
cover so I threw it at my sister, who was standing gurgling in her cot.
So now she was crying, and somebody came into the room. My sister said
between sobs, "Bla bla bibibbla yuk bibla!" That somebody translated
all that rubbish and picked up the book cover, and I got another whack across
the nut. Well it could not have been my Mum because she never spoke in
that language.I got more teeth, and little books with coloured pictures
in them depicting cows, horses , rabbits,
etc, and later I got a book with
The Three Little Pigs in it, and although I could not read it my mother
did, and I was enchanted. That book was always under my pillow. Mother
would read stories of Mother Rabbit and her offspring and soon I was a
Mother Rabbit fan as well, and as I got older I would climb through the
back fence into a field and play with little rabbits. If you lay still
and have lots of patience, baby rabbits will come to you and they are a
lot of fun. One day a stoat got one of the baby rabbits and its cries were pitiful,
but I was afraid of the stoat so there was nothing I could do.I was growing
up in a world of flowers in the garden, and blue skies and fleecy clouds,
and green
fields sprinkled with buttercups and daisies where I could lie
down and animals would come to me. Skylarks way up in the sky would
be singing their hearts out and it was a wonderful world.We were isolated. We never,
well hardly ever, saw anyone new, so we lived in our own little world.
I was
maybe four years old and I had been in the field playing chase with the
rabbits. I would
chase them, then they would chase me and we had us a right
old time, when I noticed my Father coming up the lane with a bundle in
his arms. When he got indoors he gave the bundle to Mum and she put
this tiny piglet into a blanket in a basket near the fire, and stayed up
all night feeding it from a baby bottle once every hour. Mum saved
its life. As soon as I clapped eyes on that little pig (it was one out of
my book, so I thought) so it was up to
me to make sure it was safe and
looked after. I had a horrible feeling of the stoat getting into the house
and getting the little pig, so I was always making sure the door to outside
was shut. The little pig grew a bit bigger and we became the best of friends.
It would chase me round the back garden and then I would chase it and sometimes
when I collapsed with laughing at its antics it would run over to me and
lay down beside me with a happy squeal.One day the Farmer was passing in
his pony and trap, and he pulled up and got out of the trap and
walking
through our five barred gate to the back garden he doffed his cap to my
Mum who was in the garden doing a bit of weeding. Then he walked over to
the pig sty and had a look at Doris (the pig). Then my Dad came out of the
house and on seeing the farmer said "What d'yu think tu Doris then, Davey?"
The farmer smiled and said, "I think you have a very industrious
wife Barker." Dad said, "Ah meant t' pig," and turning and
pointing to Mum weeding in the garden, "That's me missus, Annie."I would
go down the hedgerows in summer and the pig would forage and I would sit
on a log
and wait. Then the pig would look up and I would get up and run
and the pig would chase me all the way back home. Each year the pig got
bigger and soon she was too big to run round after me, but I would still
rub her behind the ears and she would squeal with delight. A bloke from the
village was passing on the way to the railway station one day and seeing
Dad in the
garden enquired, "How's t' pig Charlie?" and Dad answered
"Cum in an' aye a luk"(come in and have a look). The bloke
from the village gasped on seeing Doris and he asked, "Is that same
wrecklin' as yu got of John Davey?" Dad stuck his chest out and
said "Aye, an' Ah'l tell thee summat else, Ah ent bin feedin 'er nowt
else but swill an' a bit o' meal an' mebbe an odd Guiness Stout. Mind yu, mah missus gor 'er goin' tu
start with." "So what du yu reckon she wud weigh then?" asked our village friend, and my Dad looked at Doris.
Then after awhile he ventured, "Thick end o'twenty stone." (nearly
280lbs). "Much as that?" mused our visitor.The sow had a litter
of piglets and I was told not to go into the sty. "She may bite you," I was told.
I thought she wouldn't, but not wanting a thick ear for
disobedience, I always stood outside and reached in to rub her back and
she loved it. I became aware that something was different when my Mum said,
"You will have to learn to leave
the pig alone a bit more Thomas.
She is not little any more and she can't be here forever." It was like
being doused with icy water, life without Doris? Dad was going to sell
her? I pondered this for a long time, but every day I went to the pig sty
and Doris was still there, so I didn't worry any more.Then one Saturday
I was in the back garden and I saw this stranger pull up out side. He
walked
into our back gate and I ran in to tell my Mum but she said, "it's
all right, your Dad knows him." I watched him as he unloaded what looked
like a small table with a pair of handles at each end, and an oblong wooden
bath tub and placing these out side on the garden he went into the barn
and secured a rope and pulley from the cross beam. Then he went round to
the pig sty and putting a rope round Doris's nose so she could not bite
and grabbing hold of the tail he was steering her toward the barn. Doris
was screaming her head off as my Dad showed up. I thought, my Dad will rip
his arm off and beat him to death with it. But surprise, surprise, Dad
helped to get the now squealing, struggling pig into the barn and
standing
behind her so she could not back up. The bloke tied the rope to a beam and
went out to his cart. Now he had on a blue and white
butcher's apron
and a leather belt with all these different knives in it. Grabbing
what looked like a pick axe but it had a short spike on one side and a
heavy hammer head on the other side, and coming back into the barn he put
one leg over the pig's neck, bringing both legs together so now the pig
could not move her head sideways. She was still struggling and I was
crying and my Dad was shouting at my Mum, "Get that bloody
kid awaer
from 'ere!" Mum came over and tried to drag me away but I evaded her
and she was suddenly caught up by this murderous drama. She stood with
her arm round me as if to shield me as the man lifted the hammer cum pick
on high and it came down with a sickening thud on the pig's head. The
legs of the pig instantly splayed out, and she was dead. It all happened so
quickly and now that
I fully realised what had happened, I was rooted to
the spot as I watched the butcher make a slit in the pig's throat and start
to drain all the blood from the body. I noticed this was caught in
a dish so nothing was wasted, but then I was too busy being sick. The last I saw
of Doris was a lifeless body on the short table and the butcher had hold
of one front leg, moving it back and forth to get all the blood from the
body.I became aware of my Mother holding my hand in front of the fire in
the kitchen and saying
something like it has to happen to all pigs there
is nothing we can do about it. I snatched my hand away and ran outside.
I felt like I had been betrayed by my Mother. She knew how I felt about
animals, yet here was I
belonging to a group that killed them, and she had
let this happen. I would go round to the now empty sty. All the piglets had
been sold. Smart man my Dad, he could
always get another wreckling (the
weakest piglet in the litter, which usually died without special care) for free from the farmer's
pigs. I began to learn to live with my newly acquired information, but to
add insult to injury, my Dad
came home one evening and informed my Mum that
a rabbit was hanging in the barn and that he would skin it tomorrow. "An'
if'n Ah catch yu in't barn, yung'un, Ah'll skin yu alive, gor it? Ans'er
me' w'en Ah'm talkin' tu yu, dammit!" A quiet "Yes Dad"
and he would disappear, probably to the pub in the village. Days later we
sat down to dinner and guess what? Rabbit pie, with potatoes, green peas,
gravy.
I sat at the table and looked at the severed leg that had once been
on an animal running wild and free. "You eat it, cos yu get nothin
else till yu do," said my Dad. My Mother was upset. "I'll make him a rice
pudding." "Naw yu don't! 'E don't eat that, 'e don't eat nowt." For
the next two days I made my mind up I would wait my Dad out, but my Mum
spoilt it by giving
me biscuits when Dad was at work. I began to think that
what the man and my Dad had done had caused an upset in nature, because
the leaves were all turning red and yellow and brown and some trees in
our orchard were dying until Mum reassured me, "No, it happens every
year." But where was the skylark now? The little rabbits were nowhere to be seen and it was getting cold.
The buttercups and daisies had
all gone and it was like a different world, as if nature was bitter at
what my Dad had done and was going to slowly do something about it. Then
it began to snow and the pond was covered with ice. I got to be five years
old and the sun came out again, and lots of little rabbits began to run
around,
but now they would not come and play, and I felt very bitter about
that. But then I was taken to school, and it was time to grow up.
