Once Upon A Time in the West . . . Country (17 page)

Dave the Pig had failed to leave my consciousness, largely because questions about whether I had anymore bets lined up were always asked whenever I gave any kind of live performance. When I mentioned the Dave the Pig challenge at a literary festival in Dartington, a lady put up her hand, claiming that she had actually
bred
the pig in question. She told an enthralled room that she had originally sold the pig to a gay couple, who found the pig too much for them, and that they had sold it to its present owner who, as far as she knew, lived in Torquay.

The net was closing in.

Irritated that I couldn’t trace this pig, I emailed the
Judi Spiers Show
on Radio Devon, asking if I could come on and be interviewed about my current mini obsession. An invitation was duly offered and I trundled off to the studios in Exeter. However, after a lengthy discussion on pigs, Judi put out numerous appeals for listeners to call in and offer clues as to Dave’s whereabouts, but none were forthcoming. The location of this wretched pig remained a mystery.

‘Maybe you should ditch Dave and take one of those cute micro pigs from Pennywell Farm?’ suggested Judi, as I left the building. ‘They’re adorable.’

‘Micro pigs?’

‘They breed them as pets. Taking one of them would be much easier.’

Easy
had never been something I’d sought out.
Easy,
I’d found,
often went hand in hand with
a bit
dull
. However, in this case, when Judi had used the word
easier
, she had probably meant
possible
. One of the callers to the programme had explained that there is a reason why we use the word ‘pig-headed’ to describe stubbornness, and that when a pig decides it doesn’t want to do something, it lets you and the world know. Unless Dave had been well-trained by its elusive owner, then the idea of me dragging a 250 pound dead weight all over England’s third-largest county seemed to be a distant prospect, not to mention an activity that would be entirely devoid of any pleasure.

Not that I was in it for pleasure, particularly.

My new-found interest in Dave the Pig had been prompted by a phone call from Moldova.

‘Tony, we need five thousand pounds or the building work will have to stop, and we will have to lay off the builders,’ Diana had said.

And that had been enough to set my mind buzzing with ideas. Maybe I could do the Dave challenge and get people to sponsor me? On the one hand, it went against my natural inclination. I’d founded the children’s care centre for kids with cerebral palsy using the royalties from my book
Playing the Moldovans at Tennis
, and I’d always intended it to be something that I would fund, rather than get involved in cajoling others to do the same. There seemed to be so many worthy causes out there, and only so many times one could call on people to dig into their pockets.

However, Diana, the charming, determined and kind-hearted Moldovan woman who was director of the centre, had put her heart and soul into making this initiative a success, and helping to transform the way disability was viewed in Moldova. Now the money was needed urgently in order to complete the building work on a new and bigger centre.

That’s how I found myself driving to Pennywell Farm, with a bicycle in the back of the van. After hours of research on the internet, I’d come up with the ideal challenge:

CYCLING COAST TO COAST
WITH A MICRO PIG

Now, it does sound a little more impressive than was actually going to be the case. I was cunningly going to exploit the fact that Devon is unique in Britain in having two distinct coastlines (Cornwall’s is continuous coast), thus keeping the mileage down to just over 100 miles. Secondly, I’d had the brainwave of using an electric bike. Devon’s hills would almost certainly prove too much for an untrained cyclist, especially when carrying the paraphernalia for a three-day excursion for one human – and a pig.

Peter from AXcess Electric Bikes in Honiton was not how I’d imagined the owner of a bike shop. He was far from being someone you would expect to see clad in Lycra – his appearance was more that of a middle-aged academic. However, he knew his stuff and he had been most accommodating. When I’d explained the charitable nature of my quest, he’d immediately offered to lend me a bike for a week, and he’d kitted it out with panniers, and a basket on the front intended for the pig. He’d also suggested that I use a cord on the back, operated by a ratchet mechanism, which would keep the pig’s carrier securely in place. He carefully explained how the ratchet system worked, and I took due note. Tricky little bugger, I thought, but important to keep the pig safe. Don’t want it falling off as soon as I go over the first major bump.

***

‘Here she is,’ said Chris, ‘she’s the smallest one we’ve got. Her name is Titch. Lovely temperament. You won’t want to give her back.’

I was standing with Pennywell’s owner, a confident, avuncular man with a cheeky sense of fun and a speaking voice that suggested that he had received his education at some distance from an inner-city comprehensive. We were both peering over the side of a straw-filled pen, looking at three micro pigs jostling each other. Titch was considerably smaller than the others and looked delightful.

‘Can I pick her up?’

‘Of course.’

‘She won’t mind?’

‘She’s been picked up and cuddled for the past month. She loves it.’

Chris had been breeding these pigs for the last twenty years, and they were an important part of his unique business – a farm activity park – a kind of cross between a farm and a theme park, billed as a great day out for all the family. Mind you, show me a leisure facility that
doesn’t
make such a claim. I think the reality is that most of these resort venues can’t provide fun for
all
the family. They can only satisfy
some
of the family, leaving others bored, sulky, and itching to leave. Looking around me, though, I saw only smiling faces, as kids, their mums, dads and grandparents played with lambs, rabbits, guinea pigs, goats and pigs – a testament to the joy that animals can bring to us humans, even when not served with vegetables or wedged between slices of bread.

Chris had already explained to me over the phone that three-month-old Titch would not be remotely phased by being carried around on a bike.

‘Just put her in a basket, cover her in blankets, and she’ll go to sleep. As long as she’s warm, she’ll be happy.’

Naturally enough, I was concerned about how she might empty her bowels and bladder, but when I’d first enquired, Chris’s email had been as direct as it was faintly reassuring.

If pig sleeps in her carrier, she will wait till morning to go to the toilet. If you feed her only in the morning, by evening she should have cleared out her surprises, or you could, of course, put a nappy on her if you are worried. She will need a little stroll before going to bed. If you have a spray of pee and pooh (hers) mixed with water and you spray that on the grass when you give her respite, she will feel more comfortable peeing and poohing there!! Of course, nappies are the bolt emergency situation!!

It was after receiving this email that it occurred to me that this trip could be viewed as the perfect training for fatherhood. Thinking that this would gain me valuable brownie points, I mentioned this to Fran, who looked at me, askance. (Never an easy face to do.)

‘It’s true,’ I insisted, ‘clearing up poo and wee, putting nappies on, getting it to sleep, carrying it about – perfect training. In fact, I could even carry her in one of those baby slings!’

That’s how I’d found myself in Mothercare.

Mothercare is actually titled incorrectly. A quick look around the store revealed that there was absolutely nothing available for the care of mothers – you know, things that would be useful like chocolates, sedatives, or wine lists – but instead it was filled with products for infants. Quite why they had dismissed the name ‘Babycare’ is beyond me, but it’s surprising how lax companies can be when they name their stores. The company Kwiksave didn’t even bother with a routine spell check; Carphone Warehouse doesn’t sell carphones and it’s a shop, not a warehouse; and up until a few years ago, there was a High Street chain called Radio Rentals, where renting a radio was impossible. And as for the number of times I’ve been served by gaunt assistants in Fat Face . . .

I asked the lady shop assistant where the baby slings were, and she led me to the other side of the store and showed me what was on offer.

‘The things is, this is a bit different,’ I explained. ‘This one is for a baby pig.’

‘Right,’ she replied, without a hint of surprise, ‘you’ll want this one then.’

She gestured to one of the five that were on display and simply walked off, the mention of a pig leaving her quite unmoved. Perhaps she was so numbed by her job that nothing could really tease out a reaction from her.

I’d like to buy a baby harness, please, so I can throttle a goose.

Right, in that case you need the Henderson 450. It’ll provide the strength required.

I didn’t buy the baby sling, in spite of the shop assistant’s confident recommendation, because I was still not certain that it would work with a pig. This particular purchase would have to wait until I’d done more research.

I was intending to buy nappies, but as I wandered around the shop I couldn’t see them. I considered seeking the help of the same shop assistant, and to ask whether the standard nappy would stay attached to a baby pig, but I was unable to test her seemingly imperturbable nature, as she was now surrounded by a couple who were no doubt wasting her time with boring questions about humans. Instead, I beat a hasty retreat.

***

‘Go on then, pick her up,’ said Chris. ‘If she’s going to be your companion all week, you’re going to have to get to know her.’

I leant over the side of the pen and with both hands I seized Titch and lifted her up, feeling something like King Kong must have felt as he plucked screaming women from the streets of Manhattan. Titch didn’t scream though, but she did let out a mini squeak, which ceased the moment I held her close to my chest.

‘Get your arm underneath her,’ advised Chris. ‘Pigs like to lie down and don’t enjoy having any pressure on their coccyx.’

‘Right,’ I said, resisting the temptation to jest, saying that if she had a coccyx, then she must be a lady-boar from Bangkok.

Soon I was cuddling and stroking Titch. I could feel her warmth against my chest, and I could hear a gentle grunting that I assumed to be the pig equivalent of a cat’s satisfied purr. She was simply adorable.

‘Wow,’ I said.

‘I tell you,’ said Chris, ‘you won’t want to give her back. But you’ll have to because we won’t sell her. She has such a good temperament that we want to keep her for breeding. Pigs like Titch are very special.’

‘I think we’re going to be very happy together,’ I said, making the assumption that Titch would be as enamoured with me as I was with her.

‘Put her down for now,’ said Chris, ‘we’ll come back for her after we’ve completed all the paperwork.’

‘Paperwork?’

‘Defra
1
insist on it. I’m afraid young Titch is classed as livestock, and as such we’ll have to complete movement orders for you.’

Forty-five minutes of agonising bureaucracy followed, in which we slowly completed the online forms. I was now officially a ‘haulier’, and I needed to have a movement order for each day of the trip, stating where Titch would start the day and where she would end it. Fortunately, I was prepared and had already lined up some accommodation along the way.

I’m not going to pretend that it hadn’t been a source of some concern as to where Titch and I would sleep. Whilst I hadn’t imagined that there are many hotels and guest houses that have a specific ‘no pig’ policy, it may well be something that is taken as a given.

So, armed with a dose of fragile optimism, I’d spent a day sending out emails to hotels, claiming that Titch was toilet-trained and that she would be ‘no trouble at all’. (Well, pigs never are.) To my amazement, I’d received two positive responses from hotels in Ilfracombe and Tavistock offering complimentary bed and breakfast. Only in Great Torrington, which I’d scheduled to be the middle night of my trip, had sanity prevailed. Polite rejections only. For me and Titch, it was a case of Not So Great Torrington.

‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said Chris, who was turning out to be a great problem solver. ‘We’ll put down the address of any old hotel in Great Torrington for now, and then we’ll just amend the online form when you know where you’re actually going to be.’

‘OK. Does this mean I’m ready to take Titch?’

‘It certainly does. You just need this. You don’t need to put it on Titch, but just keep it with you at all times.’

Chris handed me a tag that was supposed to be for Titch’s ear, but was bigger than her ear itself. She was now officially a ‘pig in movement’. She was now UK vn0497, though I decided to keep calling her ‘Titch’ as it rolled off the tongue so much better.

Titch made no fuss at all, as we lifted her into her little pet carrier and I escorted her off the premises. It’s always amazed me how pets and animals cope so well with this method of being moved about. I’d be a jibbering wreck if someone bundled me into a box and started carrying me about the place.