Winnie our Pig

Winnie was born on the 'Royal Berkshire Bacon' farm near Hungerford, and was chosen when only nine months old to star in the National Pig Associations demonstration in Parliament Square.

At nine months old and barren in 2000 she was headed for the chop, until the bright lights and cameras called, where she was to stand for Mayor of London. It took to the twelth hour for someone to notice that pigs could not stand for the post, so she spent three months touring the country having become the darling pig of London and a celebrity in her own right.

Winnie was a steep learning curve for pig novices. Unaware that pigs do have a sense of humour, Winnie would greet me every day with a very deep 'uh huhu uhh!' With tusks showing it was a daunting sight and sound. With time I learnt this was her general 'hello, how are you, and where's my scratch?'. Later on she would always be the first to the fence with a really soft and low yet excited grunt when there was a new litter of babies around. One night around midnight when it was perishingly cold, I was woken by a grunting that wasn't Tony snoring to realise there was a Winnie out of here pen and outside our bedroom.

We got up and for ease put her in with the boar, looked to check where she had got out - she had jumped a two foot fence- and went back to check she was OK. As we approached the boar in the pen he let out THE most bloodcurdling scream: he was hooked by his tusks into the stock fence, the more he pulled the more it hurt. Luckily we were able to cut him free.

That night the temp went down to -11ºc. From then on every night we would listen to Winnie and 'Trigger' argue over who slept where in the hut like an old grumpy couple.

In July 2007 Winnie was on the watermeadows by the Thames and along with all the other pigs which included 30 week old piglets some of which were granddaughters of hers. We were unaware of the rise of the Thames until late on a Sunday night, so a mass evacuation was underway the following morning. With no pig infrastructure on the park, our small calf pen become refugee pig accommodation. More seriously the loss of farm income from the three quarters of the farm underwater, meant we had to face the serious possibility of giving up of our farming enterprise or find a way to get through.

Tony was away working as a way to try to redress the losses, but making ends meet was far to close to impossible, each animal having to be evaluated for its ability to contribute.

Winnie being the biggest and now totally unproductive (not to mention peeved because I had no time to give her the one on one that she loves) was often the topic of 'when to sausage her'. I contacted Hugh Crabtree to see if he could re-home her. After two months of waiting, no offers were forthcoming and again her future was in the balance.

If Winnies future was in the balance, unbeknown to us the entire British Pig Industry was in the same situation. In Feb (08) Winnie had a visit from her old 'manager' friends, whilst being at the heart of the pig industry, came to see if at nine she might still be capable of campaigning. Winnie knew something was afoot, every time I went into the pig paddock she was in my pocket constantly, until the day before her London trip. Bath day! Not that she minded in the least as she also had the first of her media attention. Um! Cameraman! Heheheh!

Winnie loved the attention, apples, doughnuts etc that comes with constant photo calls, with MP after MP after MP (even the ones in strange skirts?) and even other celebrities. Winnie would go campaigning every day given the opportunity, but will gladly accept visitors to her pen on the park anytime: especially those with apples or doughnuts.