Inspiration - Harry the Pig...
procrastination rules Harry to the rescue or not...
I have been planning a couple of Substack posts for weeks, my brain cannot compute planning anymore. I am in procrastination overdrive. Never a good thing. I have given myself a real good talking to - I must post something, even if it is more eclectic and eccentric than ever.
I would like to welcome all my new subscribers I hope you will enjoy my posts. Thank you so much to all of you who keep coming back as well. 😘❤️
Here goes - definitely down the nearest rabbit 🐇 warren, possibly to hide away from my readers. At least it's a short one.
As a child, we moved from rural Hertfordshire to North London. It was during the summer school term. I stayed on a friend's farm. I could start my new school in North London in the autumn term.
Part of my farm world was Harry the Pig. He was the runt from one of the litters. Big Jim, who owned the farm, separated the runts to stop them from starving or stop their mothers from killing and eating them. Harry had his own pigsty. At every opportunity, I would climb in, talk to Harry, give him cuddles and take the ticks off his back with a big scratch. I fed and mucked him out. Mucking out was easy. Feeding could be challenging, trying to tip the bucket of pig nuts in the trough before they were scattered across the floor by a ravenous Harry. Pigs are methodical about their living quarters and clean. They allocate a particular area for their toilet, never inside where they sleep.
When I got home from school, I could hear Harry squealing as he heard me approach. I told Harry about my day before anyone else. I knew I could not take him to London. I also knew eventually, he would go for meat.
Jim was a good, kind, and caring farmer. He treated all his animals well. The sows with litters had large pigsties, as did those ready to farrow. The top field was large for the other sows and a boar. He always called the vet when any animals needed him. This was often not the case on some farms in the 1960s. Mr Chestnut looked like an older version of James Herriot - All Creatures Great and Small - with white hair, a checked shirt, corduroy trousers, brogues, and always a tie. Mr Chesnut is long gone, but my animals still go to the same practice. Now, they only deal with small animals. The cattle, sheep & pig farms have long gone.
Unfortunately, Harry never went for meat. After I left for London permanently, he pined for me and refused to eat. Harry died of a broken heart. It taught me never to get too attached to farm animals; it can harm them. Nonetheless, I loved Harry; he was a great friend and confidante.
That summer was the last time I could roam on Jim and Sylvia's farm. The following year, the A10 Ware bypass ripped through the middle of the smallholding, taking with it all the pigsties. The farm was no longer viable as a working small holding. The compensation was the bare minimum, with a small piece of unusable land thrown in. After the road broke the farm in half, to get from one side of the farm to the other involved a half-mile trip along a busy road. Jim kept some cattle at the top field, which was not enough to make a living and was not secure as they were on the other side of the bypass. Although I would stay during school holidays, and I loved spending time with Jim and Sylvia, it never felt the same. A hundred-foot embankment loomed above the farm, obscuring the sun from some of the barns and slicing the farm in half. You could not escape the menace.
Little Thele, as the farm was called, holds some of my happiest childhood memories. I could get lost for hours up the fields, feed all the animals with Big Jim and sit cuddling the smelliest sheepdog in the barn when it was too wet to be outside.
Prompts - a slightly different one today
Think of the best smells, sounds, sensation (the feel of a pigs back for example) and sights from your childhood.
What, where and who do they make you think off?
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Oh Jo, what a sad story, poor little Harry. I do envy you though spending some of your childhood on a farm, that was my dream when I was a small girl. We did have pigs about 10 years ago, just four at a time for meat, and like you I used to go down every day to tickle their bellies. I have since realised I would have made a useless farmer's wife!
It's because of the charming innocence of pigs, lambs and calves that I can no longer eat meat. And my husband and I are farmers!
Poor little Harry - I hate the thought of him pining. My heart breaks too, for Jim and Sylvia. How shabbily they were treated by the government.
But I'm pleased you had the farming experience during your childhood - it's so important to break down that wide city-country divide.