Grandmother, Edwardian socialite, suffragette, WWI nurse, with a cane in one hand and a rosary permanently in the other, praying that the sins of the father not be visited upon the children to the third generation, perhaps referring to that ancestor who had his head chopped off in the Tower (what her sins were we never knew but she did teach us risque music hall songs and there was a high society scandal in Dublin in 1904; divorce accusations of poisoned wine. On grandfather’s death she married her childhood sweetheart, left Dad in a convent, and sailed to Cuba with her adventurer. Shame grandfather died young as he was a hero to young me having taken a field hospital out to the Boer War. Other heroes in my mind were ancestors who joined the United Irishmen revolutionaries in 1798, who fought the British at Culloden, and the WWII fighter ace, the African explorer, and of course Tsar Peter the Great’s favourite General, the Hero of Azov, General Patrick Gordon.

Mother had nine children to take care of and feed, us eight and an adopted, so individual attention was obviously stretched thin, as was money. Clothes were darned and mended, outgrown shoes had their toes cut off to last another year, food had to be homegrown. Thrift was essential to survive. Once we had done our morning’s jobs we were left free to roam the countryside as feral children, only returning at the sound of the handbell. My own job was taking care of the 400 free range hens, and the rats, rats as big as wolf hounds they were, no lie.

Mrs K. the housekeeper that forced me to eat cabbage and locked me in the dark coal cellar if I didn’t. But I ate the coal. Food was hard to come by after the war, sweets were rationed but we were sent a parcel of cakes from Germany every Xmas.

Mrs T. the second housekeeper didn’t really approve of me.

Maria the au pair was my hero as a child. A wonderful girl years later we fell for each other when she spent a long hot summer straw carting on my farm but I was a fool.

Harry Mockford worked the one acre kitchen garden. Harry spoke his mind, gave me a right telling off for going down the beach and forgetting to give the hens water. I never did that again. Another hero, I admired him greatly.

George the second gardener/handyman, told heroic tales of the Royal Sussex fighting Rommel, and gave me practical lessons as a Jack of All Trades that have stood me in good stead. I worked for him for a few year after leaving school.

The villagers.
The village schoolteacher, Miss Lamb, hair tied up with a scarf, fag hanging out the corner of her mouth. No kid dared misbehave. The school lavatory was a long bench with holes 2ft apart with buckets under. She had to empty the these every day, tipping the contents out onto the cinder pile in the corner of the playground. Imagine that today!

Mr Marchant the farmer still used a cart horse, Black Bess, the first horse I ever sat on, and he would still stack and thatch his straw and hay. The whole village would turn out and make a party day of helping stook the harvest, aided by cider in stone flagons.

The Baker boys at the garage up on the main road, also ran the flatbed lorry that collected the milk churns, always ready to help and advise on motor car mechanics.

And Ben’s scrapyard, a source of spares for our old automobiles

Jack the council roadman, showed me how to use a scythe, and a swop an hook, he kept the roadside verges in good order. No petrol machine needed.

The folk singer, the blacksmith, the publican, the three witches. Mrs Robertshaw’s shop where a farthing would buy a blackjack. She let us once watch her TV, a blurred picture on a 6 inch screen. Old Mr Castle, the gardener down the manor house with greenhouses alive with geraniums, I would spend hours with. The rail crossing keeper, don’t recall his name, he used to get annoyed if we asked him to open the crossing gates after 8pm (there were more trains than cars back then)

Aged eleven was sent to France for a year as was ill. Wow the French treated me as an adult. And the French girls, wow again.

Then college. Now there be Real Monsters there. The sadistic Fr Budworth with his cane, and worse from Dunphy, may they rest in hell. But Fr Smalley was a great English teacher, and I was once given encouragement by Bro Maloney.

Freedom at last.

On my own with 100 sows and their piglets. Too much time down the pub, or on horseback. Farmer Fred and his sister Dor took me under their wing, they were like real parents to me and taught me what is important and what isn’t.
They were the Real Heroes.

The Red-Eyed Steer

he never got away did Fred.

his sister did, got it away

with a foreign man in uniform.

mother and dad called her a whore

so he did too, lost her for good.

we found the photograph she sent

of her wedding day, her escape.

he’d saved it in a wooden box,

with a white five pound note

and a silver harmonica.

sang like a lark he said he did

at sunday service or aback

the lead ploughhorse following

his fathers threadbare jacket,

before they done bombed the privy.

(killed the best cow too.)

never married; his land-girl love

had leukaemia and anyways

he could warm his hands of an

icy morn on the cows udder,

and conkers in the corners

kept the spiders off the bed, and

girls took time and he didn’t have

none because the hay needs cutting.

those milk churns they took some filling,

acres of work them cows wanted.

before he died we spun the cream

into the crock we found in the shed,

washed the woodworm out the paddle.

he patted buttermilk out the yellow,

wrapped around the waxed paper.

all it needed was a ribbon.

he smiled and cried like Christmas,

like when we put the lav indoors

(never shit indoors before he hadn’t)

and a microwave in the outhouse,

and chucked the hard upright chair

for a soft un, with arms too, and

a tv remote, - in colour.

stopped the cars on the London road

to take him on a ride in a coffin.

he would have liked that;

even if it weren’t the escape he planned.

(i shot the red-eyed steer as broke his legs)

I Commoners

These old hedgerows are recent chains,

The Common clay, a canvas painted

by the plough, once lightly veined

by weaving, footpad ways.

Coins thrown from gallows,

oxen-hauled oaks

swing

slub-coated to the cannon.

Rods

and

perches

sliced

cakes

of the Rape ( an old land division)

and Manor

of Laughton.

Axe-wooded,

spaded ditch divides.

Where hedges rise

enclosed time dies

a harvest-houred day.

Take potter’s clay

to mould men’s toys.

Sunday morning boys

have calloused hands,

their voices break

to the pitch

to the plough

to the blackthorn’s poison.

Sleep deep in an earth-skin prison.

Wake up to the worm-song within.

II. Tea and Television

Where the flying bomb fell there’s still a crater

in a flat field where moles run in horseshoe drains

dug in double-spit deep by yesterdays Cannon-Fodder.

Summer rain seeps slow with roots and worms

wintertime floodwater breaks out the arteries

through silted minds Of Mice and Men

to where snipe spear the palmsoft mud.

On a Crown of Thorns the blossom blooms,

on the blossom the white dove preens,

and from the dove the red blood drips.

Red berries on a green tree;

the holly feeds and grows

and shades the Earth

from me.

Through the gate a drove road calls

where hollow men in leg-irons follow

to the sheep grazed summit,

a flint blade skins the Wolf,

a bronze axe cracks the Skull.

Time for a beer

or maybe glass of Bordeaux

banker lawyer soldier, whore,

let’s just have

that one glass more.

Piss on the past and look to the future

sod the present, it just don’t matter.

There’s blood on the thorn

but who the hell cares

if crimson rain tells

how another world fares.

there’re rats

nose to tail on the window ledge

when the floodwater fills the feedstore

Survivors framed behind glass

watch and wait.

The cord’s been cut, the Dead now covered.

Body-odoured in the Underground, tiles,

white, ceramic,

reflect the faces that call earth Dirt

on their way home to Tea and Television,

pet cat, pot noodle

and stained sheets

(A Rape is a traditional territorial sub-division of the county of Sussex in England, formerly used for various administrative purposes. Their origin is unknown, but they appear to predate the Norman Conquest of 1066. Historically, the rapes formed the basis of local government in Sussex.)

Been plenty of storms and still water, good times and the depths of hell. Plucking me out of a country mansion to live as a pauper in a trailer for fifteen years before I built the house, I may not have been the expected catch. She had horse at livery at the farm next door and fell for this dashing young lad who cleared the five bar gate on his hunter to go see her. It’s been neither neither “An age of discord” or “A pattern of celestial peace”, just two people getting to know each other, and it works.

When your bladder is bursting
and you’re dying to go
but try as you might
you can’t start the flow
oh what a wonderful joy it is
when a tube up your dick
allows you to piss

When your belly has blown
to the shape of a ball
and Movelat powders
are no help at all
oh what a joyous sound to hear
the gaseous blast
as a fart lets fall

But when starlings flock
in the lavatory bowl
and poo, and pee,
and wind flows free,
that dear friends,
none can contest,
THAT is the greatest joy of all.

So when next I wander lonely as a cloud
and see daffodils dancing in the breeze
then will I go down on bended knee
and thank you, good Lord, for yellow pee.
For what a wonderful thing it is,
is a sparkling flow of golden piss.

Prostate cancer incidence

There are around 57,900 new prostate cancer cases in the UK every year

Prostate cancer is the 2nd most common cancer in the UK

Since the early 1990s, prostate cancer incidence rates in males have increased by more than half (54%) in the UK

Prostate cancer incidence rates in England are 17% lower in the most deprived sections of society. (Capitalists may say this is a good reason to cut wages!)

let my mind stay clean and free,
allow me to live as the bird in the tree.
let the bird not a vulture be,
nor the tree a cross to crucify me.

protect me from my human form,
let it not leave me twisted and torn.
fill me with love to lighten my life,
and strength to see me through the strife.

Living up to its name, the white-tailed bumblebee is black-and-yellow bee with a bright white 'tail'. A social bumble bee, it can be found nesting in gardens and woods, and on farmland and heaths, and in our front room. At 7 am they ask for the window to be opened. Yesterday it was raining and they sent a scout out every half hour who would do a quick circle and come back in to inform the rest to stay in. In sunshine and warm we can leave the window open a crack for them but if cold and cloudy they get dumb and need the window open wide, which is not ideal for us. Their nest is down below the radiator pipe so we can’t put the heating on for fear of burning them. They follow the same anti-clockwise flight path when they come in, flying a 5’ circle and then dropping to the floor three inches from the pipe then scurrying across and we see their little white bum tip up and disappear down the hole as in the video clip. We like to shut the window on these cold evenings but we have to be up and down every few minutes as they knock on the window to come in or out. Good exercise. By 8pm they are usually all in though last night there were a couple of stop outs until 9, they must have got cold as took them a while to remember where their nest is.

We were shocked the fat archaeologist who had the watching brief ( for £200/day!) just kicked bones out of sight.

Marie Malone (sung to tune of Mtns of Mourne)

“Keep off the Grass” so said the sign

behind the bunches of dead flowers

at St Mary’s churchyard,

where Brendan, Big Jim, Mike Murphy and me

was digging down deep a-laying new drains

swinging our shovels a-digging on down

alongside and into “Dear Marie Malone”

singing a song as we picked through her bones

singing jus like we was a diggin’ fer gold

I took hold one leg, and Big Jim the t’other

an we put them together jus right an proper

so no one could tell you’d a pvc pipe

laid by your thighs all out of sight

an that we four had been in your bones, bonnie girl

yes we four had been in your bones, Marie

swinging our shovels a-digging on down

alongside and into “Dear Marie Malone”

singing a song as we picked through her bones

singing jus like we was a diggin’ fer gold

This is not snow, it is one of the two thorn sisters, the magical Hawthorn (or May,) the Green Man’s crown.

Blackthorn blossoms in the dying days of winter but Hawthorn blossom, like the arrival of our swallows, should herald the warmth of the coming season.

Often when the Blackthorn flowers we have an evil sharp cold spell known here as a Blackthorn Winter with frosts and biting winds. The Blackthorn has sharp needles whose painful wounds infect the skin. It is linked to dark magic and witches who would use the branches for staffs, twigs for wands and thorns as stabbing needles in dummies to cause harm to their victims. It was a plant to be feared.

This is followed by the Hawthorn, the fairy tree. We ask for wishes to come true by hanging coloured ribbons as gifts to the tree spirits. The best it gets from me is coloured bale twine. Do not risk upsetting those fairies by cutting down a lone May tree. There are tales of farmers who had accidents or villages where the cows had no calves or chickens stopped laying after a tree was felled. Fall asleep under a May tree and the fairies will carry you away in your dreams. Could be true as the blossom perfume is an aphrodisiac!

Here at Golden Cross we have had no April showers, it’s been hot sunny days and frosty nights. I hardly dare say it but I hope for some gentle rain to give the grass a boost.

“The Country Food Trust is a food poverty charity – with a difference. We focus on protein as the most important food group, which unfortunately is also the most expensive, hence the first dropped by those facing food insecurity. Our protein of choice is wild meat; pheasant, partridge and venison dominating the meats we donate to food banks, community kitchens and homeless shelters around the country. We donate in two formats: Frozen raw meat and ambient nutritious meals, with a 12 month shelf life consisting of; pheasant curry, pheasant casserole, partridge curry, venison bolognese and venison pasta bolognese. We also do turkey curry at Christmas and lentil curry. We work directly with shoots to ensure all birds enter the food chain, indeed for next season we are looking for hubs to set up, following a successful trial this year. These hubs will collect a minimum of 1000 birds a week and with donations from the guns will enable CFT to process and distribute the meat to those in need in the area. Another part of our work are deer management projects. Due to a philanthropic donation in 2024 we were able to engage with stalkers in Sussex and start a duel environmental and social scheme of culling Fallow does and giving the resulting raw mince to community kitchens in Sussex. By the end of the season we culled 884 fallow does and delivered over 170,000 meals within the county. “

Danu’s bones lay bare breasted, open hipped, beside a spawning sea.

Sun-fleshed supine in the sun the chalk Downs stirred

as creatures crawled out upon the rocky shore, and

warmth that watered falling clouds wove a cloak of green.

But we sucked our mother’s marrow from her bones to quench our thirst

dust devils of flint, of bronze, of iron, cloud a setting sun,

and the Cuckmere river now runs dry, down the Haven to the sea

so one day our own bones will take their turn to yawn

bare breasted, open hipped, beside a spawning sea.

The whore awoke with a start, at the feet of a forgiving god

(for she had sucked upon the bones of gods and men

and bathed in the waters that ran down to the sea)

And Danu smiled and put the kettle on for tea.

In 1972 I missed catching that ferry, the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry, and was sentenced to a life of farming. No more kissing and cuddling on the banks of the Seine or sleeping on the beach at St Tropez, just 54 years of shovelling shit.

My own family’s ancestors fought at Rorke’s Drift, at Sebastopol, at Culloden, fought for Peter the Great of Russia and the King of Sweden, fought the English in Dublin and at Culloden, the Boers in South Africa, and the Japanese in Burma. They marched with the Suffragettes and Trade Unions They explored Africa with Stanley, traded sugar in the Caribbean, cigars in Cuba, and cattle in Argentina, even dug gold in the Klondyke.

They made a damn nuisance of themselves over seven continents for hundreds of years.

What have I done? I’ve taken care of my own 40 acres and I am glad. Would the world be a better place if we all just waved the ferry goodbye?

hundreds of teeth iiiiiichin to bite me dead

an i life de knife but it move slow

for everything cep dis killer move slow in de water

but fear drive my hand

an i slash him in de stomach

All submissions are submitted anonymously and the three judges thought they had discovered a fresh new voice out of Britain’s Caribbean community. The crowd was shocked, and the judges surprised, when a 62-year-old white woman from Cornwall, Caroline Carver, stood up at the awards ceremony to claim her prize.
“I don’t think they expected a white woman,” she said “However, everyone was far too polite to say so.”

This is my pastiche, or perhaps parody, of her poem in the Sussex dialect. (content alert, may upset those of refined sensibility). I am Irish but identify as Sussex having lived here all my life.

ol Dorg an oi stand on dung maxon

wees be utchy waarm narly

fer the valley steams

early morn earthworm smells

and black Dorg growls like

at sounds in the dun

like an ee wants home

and oi pulls out that spile outen maxon

doent see the sunrise on The Hill

and listens fer that there varmin in trap

and i sees that smaart varmunt

but nots as smaarts as i be e hung iself

in the wire i dids set by hen house

an Dorg e hungs back lapsylike

cos the drazel fox screech spitting

and e wanted in and Dorg looked at i

like leave it ain’t worth it but i says

penneyhen was worth it somewhens

and i says hold ard Dorg

and the varmunt ee snaps swarly like

and wees slip quick like in the slub

so’s not get taken by thems sharp teeth

and ee’s all teeth allus abart

and theys be red in sunrise teeth

and i’s swing that spile down

but it seems slow too slow cos e spin ssssspins quick e does

and his eyes I knows e knows innis eyes

but I hears him spit fierce like an evil bloody bug ger

he asked fer it soas i do it

and Mus Reynolds still scream at us

and i brung it down so dam hard and dam hard and dam hard and dam hard

till i hears his skull crack

and hes not fierce anymores and e lies there sad like

and black Dorg e skiced back t’ yarrd longwhens ago

and i was pleased cos it was a vixen

and her belly moved for jus a while

and they could die in comfort like.

This is the original “Horse Under Water” by Caroline Carver (Caroline grew up in and identified with Jamaica)

jigharzi an me stand in de water

warm an friendly

for de world smell like snails

oooozing on hot charcoal

an jigharzi step wary

as tiger fish skip between his legs

an he make like he hate de coral forever

an i slip from his back de knife in my hand

forget de electric blue an glitter of de rainbow

an wait for shark to come over de reef

as tide lifffff de water over

an soon de fin come

quiver when it see me but it come

shark he thick between de ears if he had them

i say

an jigharzi he snorting and heading for land

coz dis fellow mean business

an he say why you wan kill him anyway

an i say is sport man as well as supper

an impress de tourists good an good mean money

an i say trus me jigharzi

an de fin go out like a light as de brute turn

over

an jigharzi say man dis fellow bes swimmer in de sea

an de rush of water push me sideways

an de teeth glitter in sunshine that come

through de water

hundreds of teeth iiiiiichin to bite me dead

an i liff de knife but it move slow

for everything cep dis killer move slow in de

water

but fear drive my hand

an i slash him in de stomach

an de monster done falter

fffffffalter in de water

but he turn roun anyways

and come again kinda slow now

an i slash him in de stomach in de same place

de same place de same place de same place

till his womb come out an his gut

for it not a he but a lady

with babies in a bag all ready to do business

but jigharzi he long gone for shore

for de water full of blood clouds of blood

clouds of froth clouds of gore

but not clouds of joy cos it a lady

Once thought to have had no language or art, but recently a flute fashioned from the thigh bone of a bear was found which plays the same scale of seven notes that is the basis of modern Western music.

What silver scene set under a youthful moon
woke that dull aching to compose.
From where in that scowling skull did come
the urge to set your world to tune.
And in your quiet thoughts did you suppose
your flute would be overtaken by the drum,
that for you the Earth was but a barren womb
with no child of yours to tend your tomb.

And were you all enslaved by our forebears
kept caged like larks to lilt and chant.
so gentle that you lost the instinct to survive
and played your tunes to chide away your cares.
What haunting hymn flowed from that flute,
raised your spirit, kept your hope alive,
as Philomel played on the hollow bones of bears
did the flow of music replace your flowing tears.

Your race was not raised to the beat of the drum
but softly lilting sounds of blown bones.
A harmony of a hundred thousand year
ended when you had nowhere left to run.
Did homo sapiens drive you from your homes
as humble happiness was replaced by fear
of the devil’s descant that was to come
as the dark side of the Moon displaced the Sun.

And so one day, millennia from now,
will apes be playing instruments of grace,
debating if we had the soul to sing
and wonder, finding clarinet and strings, just how
that dull dumb breed, the extinct human race,
did have what lets the heart take wing
inside that primal head, that domed brow,
to sing as songbirds upon the blossomed bough.

I want to know, I have to understand:
Were you the Adam, do we come from Cain
and was the apple the thigh bone of a bear.
What killed your song, were you the final band.
And as the flute played the interlude to pain
did the serpent hear your melody of fear
that flowed out faint across a sterile land
as Eden sank slowly under grains of sand.

The world learned to count

when he was twelve.

The number of eggs in a pigeons nest

was all he knew

the number of his sisters

and of his brothers.

But by eight he could count each of forty four mile

to a college of cassocks cawing round a refectory table.

Reigate Redhill Staines Slough Windsor

counting the slap

of each name

on the palm

of his hand.

Counting cats-eyes

Counting hairs on the back

of his fathers head.

Counting gathering clouds. The front is near.

Thames mist is mustard gas in Journey’s End.

repent your sin my son (Your son?)

before you count to four tomorrow

In nomine patris say a prayer for Cuba

before we die Our Father

(Runnymede Runnymede I met JFK on Runnymede plain)

240 180 120 60

but four minutes

you’ll only need

to count

to four

my son.

(Runnymede Runnymede we played the game on Runnymede)

I still find myself counting up to four

when I cross the Playing Fields

where a cracked rock

commemorates

the life

of the man in black.

(In those days boarding school was very brutal. I still to this day cannot stop myself obsessively counting. The headmaster told us kids that when the siren sounded we had 4 minutes to get to the chapel. Runnymede was our school playing fields, alongside the Thames. I hated team games, preferring to take up rowing. We saw the Queen and JKF’s family dedicate a memorial to JFK there. There is also the WWII Air Force Memorial.)

Once I could tell you of poems of mine
buried under each patch in the road,
sealed in date-stamped bread wrappers;
underground words
waiting for Murphy’s children to find.
Or the poetry that flowed unpenned
down the fingertip controls
of a Japanese excavator,
hissing through hydraulic rams,
compressed by Bosch wackerplate
into Jurassic seams.

In memory of the foreman Big Jim, Henry the Hat, Guiness bottle George, Three Finger Joe and Lordy Byrne. All long dead now.

While among the multitudes of busy people
in city throngs that chatter all day through
is found a loneliness of another kind
that curdles dreams and acidifies the tongue.

For the two sides of solitude face opposing ways.
In crying babes blood blue in birthing rooms
there can be heard the deep need to belong,
to flounder in anothers flesh and marrow.

While also heard in their harsh cry is wonder’s birth
at the independent beings they’ve become,
free to find the verge of happiness or sorrow,
as their own keepers, counting out their time

A stray, possibly a couple of years old, she turned up on the farm ten year ago starving with bleeding feet. We had just lost our previous dog and had determined to never get another but soon after that this little thing walked into the field and lay down with some children who were camping here, possibly she had heard them playing, and refused to move. She must have come from a home with children and cats as she loved them. Unable to trace her owner, perhaps she had been dumped, of course we had to keep her. She proved to be an ideal dog, a wonderful companion. Men have to put on a brave face but it was heartbreaking and I really needed a hug. Living on a farm I am no stranger to death but it always hurts whether it is a cow a sheep a horse cat a dog or even a human. If there is a sick chicken or a rabbit suffering from myxie then it is me that gets asked to put them out of their misery. Last week it was a rabbit. The major downside of owning a small excavator it is always me that gets asked to bury peoples pets. Whether livestock or pet, all animals deserve to be cared for and be given a decent live, and then to be given a peaceful death. No wild animal dies in comfort in the wild.

Please don’t kill the wounded one
we’re squeamish, we don’t care,
don’t give a damn, if in the wild
no animal dies like a sleeping child
in bed, with morphine dose at hand.

The three-legged fox can starve in the snow,
the broken-winged bird can take days to die.
Nature is brutal, Creation’s not twee,
so don’t leave the killing just down to me.

You fool,
poetry’s not for real.
Put down that pen, there’s pigs need feeding.

So,
you watched homebound crows
dip down
Firle Beacon’s flank
as you listened
to the corncrake
on the hills?

So,
a pheasant’s
flown bleeding to the sun
sliced feet
standing guard
in the hayfield with its young?

So what if we were lovers once
back when the drum mower
was a bloody-handled scythe,
and Haybobs had wooden tines?

Get real,
There’s kids to raise and bills to pay
The cows ain’t fed
And we are out a hay.
The fuel tanks dry
The hens aren’t laying
The waters froze
And it’s no use praying.
Get off your arse you drunken bum
More beer won’t get the farm work done.

Bailiffs are knocking at the door
Yet they say a farmers never poor.

Your life is not complete if you have never kept pigs, for only by keeping pigs will you learn the true meaning of existence and find your inner self. Socrates should’ve kept pigs.

Observe how pigs react with each other and with their surroundings and you will learn much about human society.

Pigs are not only intelligent, they’re similar to us emotionally as well. They get depressed, they pout, they throw tantrums, they laugh and cry and even mourn.

I have had long and deep conversations with pigs, they are good listeners and understood much of what I said and even reply in their complex varied grunt language. It is wonderful to hear a sow “singing” to its children.

You know where you are with a pig. A pig is a pig and a’ that. There never was a duplicitous pig. Not quite true they are clever enough to use tactical deception to get their way.

A pig’s snout is a wondrous thing. Tough enough to plough the bramble patch yet highly tactile, and it’s incredible sense of smell will find you a truffle deep underground.

Problem solvers, I once had a pig that was adept at opening “pig proof” gates. He would push the bolt hard against the locking drop tab, carefully lift the tab and drop it gently on the ¼” exposed stub of the bolt, and then slide the bolt open. It would do this to both bolts on the gate and let himself out for a perambulation round the yard.

George Bernard Shaw said “Never wrestle with pigs, you both get dirty and the pig likes it.” I can confirm the truth in that.

George Orwell: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” Which explains why I used to be called “Nick the Pig,” though perhaps it was just the odiferous aroma when I walked in the pub.

That’s me in my younger, a lot younger, days with dear Nelson the Pietrain boar. Happy exciting times when the world was new. Two years later in 1982 pig prices had collapsed and the herd was sold. I cried for them.

A wise old farmer, John Hobden, said to me when I finally had the cash to build a proper house and move out the shed “Nick, always remember that you owe your pigs, and your land, a great debt”.

That is a greater and more meaningful debt than any mortgage. Today everything is valued in financial terms, what damn tommy-rot that is.

(The Pietrain really is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the pig world, with good examples displaying clearly defined, rippling muscles. Thankfully, though, these pigs are gentle giants)