Sam and Chester

by Jo Bailey

  ‘I didn’t know who Rossy was at the time.’ Mr Murray chuckled at the memory of the awkward phone conversation. ‘I asked him who was going to look after the pig. Rossy told me his wife and daughter would, that he only wanted two. I then demanded to know where he lived. When he said London, I told him it wasn’t a good idea at all. “Why?” he asked me abrasively. I explained that pigs like space.

  ‘I didn’t know he was a famous presenter with a sprawling estate; I’d imagined some poky high-rise flat overlooking the railway. “Is two acres enough?” Rossy asked me, clearly amused by the whole thing.

  ‘Although the land was reassuring, I still insisted on speaking to his wife to check the pigs would be well looked after. She was lovely and had done all her homework on pig care, so I agreed to release the pig movement forms.

  ‘Sadly, Rossy himself had to cancel coming down at the last moment. He sent two men instead to collect the pigs. They arrived at the farm in a showbiz vehicle with blacked-out windows, wearing suits. I chuckled to myself as they trudged through the mud. It was an extraordinary sight! Not something you see every day on a farm in Devon.’ Mr Murray laughed at the memory.

  And that wasn’t his only celebrity story. He revealed that quite a number of famous pig fans had followed in Jonathan Ross’s footsteps, although he wouldn’t say who they were.

  ‘Mum’s the word!’ He tapped his nose discreetly. But as Charlotte Church had spoken to the press about buying a Pennywell pig he was happy to mention her . . .

  ‘When can we . . .’ I started asking the all-important question of when we could take our pig home.

  But Mr Murray was on a roll; he clearly enjoyed the spotlight and his subject. He scooped up another piglet from the litter and its little trotters paddled through the air as it let out a series of tiny squeaks.

  Once he had it safely cocooned in his arms, Mr Murray started stroking its tummy. The piglet’s eyes slowly closed as it was soothed back to sleep.

  ‘They love having their tummies tickled,’ Mr Murray said, rubbing the minuscule pink belly with his forefinger. He explained that when a female pig is happy her hair stands on end. When the hair goes up on a boar, it means one of two things: he’s happy, or you’re about to be charged by an angry pig.

  At this, Darren’s hairs suddenly stood up on end.

  ‘Wouldn’t we be better off with a female one, then?’ he asked.

  But I cut in: ‘No, shouldn’t we have the ginger one?’ That was the one Sam had befriended.

  ‘Well,’ Darren said indulgently, teasing me, ‘I guess he matches your hair colour!’ I flashed him a sarcastic smile as Mr Murray reassured us that all the male pet piglets were castrated so we wouldn’t have to worry about hackles going up.

  I was about to ask again about the timing of a piglet’s homecoming but Will beat me to it: ‘When can we take him home?’ he yelped.

  At this, Sam’s ears pricked up. We all listened as Mr Murray told us we were going to have to wait a month and a half. The piglets were only two weeks old at that time and needed to grow a little more with their mum first. That was fine by me because that gave us plenty of time to prepare for his arrival.

  I looked at Sam lying next to his pig and imagined our new life with this little ginger creature. A flush of happiness rushed through me. For the first time in months I felt the dark cloud that had been hanging over our family lift.

  There was something else we needed to do in that time too – clear it with our landlord.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll let us have pets,’ I said confidently to Darren, ‘it’s only a miniature pig after all!’

  But I had spoken too soon.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Best-Behaved Piglet

  OUR LANDLORD DIDN’T take the news well.

  ‘No, I don’t allow any pets, even if they are the size of a teacup,’ he said bluntly. He wouldn’t even discuss it.

  Uh oh. I panicked. I had never seen Sam happier than when he was with that pig. There was no way I wasn’t going to bring them together.

  ‘You are joking?’ Darren chortled when I told him I thought we should move.

  ‘I’m deadly serious,’ I said, determined as ever.

  He’d known me long enough by now to know that I didn’t give up easily and, as we talked it over, we both agreed together that this was absolutely the best decision for Sam.

  Once more, we were racing against the clock. We had just six weeks to find a new home and move all our things.

  Darren was incredible: he put in hours of research from the oil rig in Egypt. We made a great team – he found the houses online and I went to the viewings. Frustratingly, my house in Spain still hadn’t sold so we had to rent again.

  As soon as I viewed the converted barn in the beautiful village of Ugborough, I knew it was the one. It was nestled at the bottom of a hill alongside a farmhouse and another converted barn. We would be sharing a courtyard with our neighbours but we had our own garden filled with apple trees and flowers and it even had a stream running through it.

  The barn had a topsy-turvy layout – the sitting room was on the top floor and the bedrooms were spread out across the ground floor. It was just as you’d imagine a converted barn to be, with old wooden beams and sanded oak floors. It came fully furnished; some of the items, like the Persian rug by the fireplace and the plush sofa, looked quite expensive. The most important thing about our rustic new home was, of course, the fact that the landlord allowed pets. I didn’t think it was necessary to specify we would be welcoming a pig just yet. A pet was a pet at the end of the day, and ours was micro!

  As the time crept closer to picking up our micro pig, Darren started to ask more questions. Being a safety officer, he wanted to make sure all eventualities had been covered. His focus was on the practicalities that I probably should have thought about before I said we’d take the pig, but I was so determined to bring Sam’s friend home that I hadn’t even considered basic things . . . such as how much it was going to cost.

  Darren rang up the farm to get some answers.

  He spoke to Katie, the member of staff who had looked after us when we’d visited Pennywell and who owned a couple of micro pigs herself.

  ‘Three-hundred-and-fifty pounds!’ Darren repeated in disbelief when she told him the price.

  My jaw did drop at this point. It was the price of a pedigree dog.

  ‘I told you they were posh pigs,’ he whispered to me.

  But I couldn’t put a value on how much the piglet was really worth after seeing the difference he had made to Sam in just a matter of minutes. Darren and I discussed it and agreed we should go through with the sale.

  Darren continued to plough on with his practical questions on the phone. ‘How big do they grow? How clean are they? How can you train them? How long do they live?’

  Katie was clearly experienced in dealing with nervous new owners and reassured Darren that there was nothing to worry about. The miniature pigs would grow until they were two years old and reach the size of a Cocker Spaniel; they would live until about twelve to fifteen years old; they were already pretty much house-trained, as pigs instinctively make themselves a latrine; and you train them just as you would a dog, teaching them to sit, stay, roll over and so on. The best thing was you only needed to feed them pignuts – dry pellets packed full of protein, which are pigs’ staple food – and these were very cheap to buy: £5 a month. Our pig wouldn’t need any vaccinations. The only thing they needed us to do was sign a pig movement form: formal paperwork on pig ownership that had been introduced by the government after the foot-and-mouth crisis had broken out back in 2001.

  ‘So there’s absolutely no difference between a pig and a dog?’ I shook my head in disbelief.

  ‘No, apparently not,’ Darren said, all his questions answered.

  And so it was agreed. The piglet would join us in our new home. Darren and I diligently packed up the house contents we’d so carefully put in boxes less than a year before. Will was super-excit
ed about his new home and despite the big change ahead even Sam seemed happier since his visit to Pennywell. He smiled as he watched Darren playfully pack Will away.

  ‘All this for a pig,’ Darren would tease me, as he heaved another box into the removal van. He knew, though, that anything that might help Sam was worth the effort.

  We had less than a week to go before the arrival of our pig. Whenever there was a mention of bringing the pig home, Sam’s ears pricked up and he started flapping his hands with excitement. Sam’s obsession with drawing had eased a little too, which was a sign that his anxiety levels were slowly dropping. I didn’t want to say anything about it to him, just in case I burst the bubble. I just enjoyed those few calmer days leading up to our return to Pennywell.

  I didn’t really have a clue how to prepare for the arrival of a pig but Darren said we should treat him like a dog, which meant getting him a dog basket. Sam couldn’t wait to help choose a basket for his new friend. In the end Darren splashed out on a cosy blue-and-white-checked padded basket. We chose a small size to fit a Jack Russell; we knew the pig would eventually outgrow it but anything bigger would swamp its tiny body. We also bought him a ceramic dog bowl – with ‘dog’ written around the outside – in which to serve up his pignuts, and a cuddly toy pig to play with. We even got him a harness and a lead to take him out on walks.

  Sam found it difficult to make decisions but I could tell he wanted to be involved in all the preparations. I encouraged him to help me find a place in the house to put the basket. Sam took my hand and led me to the radiator in the living room. He was clearly thinking about the piglet’s wellbeing, that it would need somewhere warm and snug to sleep at night.

  This was such a mature thought process for my son. One remarkable change that we had noticed in Sam was that, ever since he had met our pig, he had started to show some empathy; something rarely seen in children with autism. Not only had he reached out to the loneliest pig in the litter to offer him company, but now he had thoughtfully chosen a warm place for him to sleep. It was heart-warming to watch – but it meant even more than that. Sam essentially spent most of his time in a silent world of his own; if left to his own devices, without us cajoling him to get involved in something new, he would do nothing more than draw silently or watch television. Seeing him preparing the pig’s bed that evening gave me a feeling of such hope that, once the pig arrived, Sam might begin to interact and communicate; that my son would become more conscious of the glorious life that was happening around him. I was optimistic he would spend less time inside his silent world once the pig came to live with us.

  I can remember the morning we left for Pennywell Farm as if it were yesterday. It was an unusually hot spring day in April 2009. The boys were excited because Grandma had flown over from Spain to meet the pig. Mum was moving to Devon in the summer but she didn’t want to miss out on the big occasion so she had come over especially.

  We all piled into our new Land Rover, which the boys had christened ‘Lightning McQueen’ (after the character in the Pixar film Cars). There was Mum, Darren, me and the boys, and a green cat carrier we had borrowed from the neighbours.

  Sam was the most excited I’d ever seen him: he was flapping and making a squealing noise. Will couldn’t stop talking about what we were going to call our new pig and we started throwing names around in the car.

  Boris? Bruno? Babe?

  ‘Porky?’ Darren contributed.

  It was harder than I thought to conjure up a name and we hoped it would come to us when we were reunited with him.

  When we arrived, we were treated like royalty. Instead of walking through the main entrance with all the tourists, this time we had someone waiting for us, ready to show us in the side gate. Katie led us into the office and fetched all the adults cups of tea, while I signed the relevant paperwork to release the pig to us. Will stood on his tiptoes trying to see what I was up to while Sam took himself off to the corner of the room to have a flap – he could barely contain his excitement.

  Katie then took us through to the barn with the pigpens. I was leading the way with our green cat carrier while Darren, my mum and the boys followed behind in an orderly line. As we drew closer to the pen, hearing the adorable soft squeaks and oinks grow ever louder, I saw something which triggered an emotion I hadn’t felt for a very long time.

  Jealousy.

  There was a woman in a grey raincoat cuddling the ginger pig: our pig. She was an older lady with grey hair and seemed totally absorbed in the pigs around her. We walked over and stood by her side, watching. ‘He’s so beautiful,’ she remarked, beaming at the pig in her arms. Her eyes were smiling with happiness.

  Instantly I felt guilty for my pang of jealousy as the woman had clearly been affected by the magic of this pig in the same way Sam had.

  ‘Yes, he’s ours,’ I said, with a hint of pride.

  ‘He will make you very happy,’ she said confidently, stroking his soft auburn fur. He was fast asleep in her arms and I felt bad asking to take him from her. Instead, wanting to distract myself until the lady was ready to let go of him, I turned to Katie.

  ‘He’s very well-behaved, isn’t he?’ I commented.

  Katie explained that Pennywell pigs are bred to be quiet and well-behaved. She told me that they are so used to being handled by the public that apart from the odd squeal or oink, they barely make a sound. This made me smile, as the communal oinking from all the pigs in the one barn created a cacophony – though thankfully we were only taking the one home with us!

  I nudged Darren, still on my pigs-are-great soapbox. ‘Another reason pigs are better than dogs,’ I exclaimed, ‘they don’t bark!’

  ‘I’m sold, you don’t have to keep persuading me,’ he laughed.

  Sam was still flapping and now making a humming noise – I think he was about to explode with elation. It was just too much for him to see his pig but not be able to hold him. The lady spotted Sam’s eagerness and patted the bench seat next to her, where she was now sitting with our snoozing pig.

  Almost instinctively, Sam knew he had to try and calm his flapping so as not to scare the animal. He slowly edged his way along the bench and came to rest by the woman’s side. I think the piglet must have got a whiff of Sam because he lifted his tiny wrinkly nose into the air and gave it a good twitch. He then peeled open his tired eyes and fluttered his long ginger eyelashes.

  It was clear that he wanted to sit on Sam’s lap, as he started wriggling and digging his trotters into the lady, trying to get to my son. The woman passed him over and as soon as he made contact with Sam he was leaping up at his neck, nuzzling him, showering Sam in pig kisses. He was clearly overjoyed to be back in Sam’s arms.

  ‘He’s got bigger!’ Will cried, noticing.

  He had grown a little – he was now more like 30cm in length, so not quite teacup size but still absolutely adorable. In dog terms, he was the size of a Chihuahua.

  We all took it in turns to cuddle our new pet and started throwing names around again. Inexplicably, a word danced on to my lips. I have no idea where it came from.

  ‘Chester?’ I suggested.

  Everyone looked up, including the pig.

  ‘He likes his new name,’ Will said, rubbing the piglet’s tummy.

  So we settled on Chester – our ginger micro pig.

  Before we could leave there was one more thing we had to do. We had to meet Chester’s dad. It was Pennywell policy for new owners to see where the offspring had come from so they could get an idea of how big their pig would grow. A lot of people think micro pigs stay miniature and tragically end up getting rid of them when they discover they grow to the size of a dog. Pennywell wanted to avoid ‘returns’ at all costs. So we’d met the mummy, now time for the dad – Pumbaa. Chris Murray, the owner of the farm, came to take us to see him.

  ‘As in Pumbaa the warthog from The Lion King?’ I asked Mr Murray.

  ‘Exactly. He’s king around here.’ The farmer winked as he led us to another barn.
/>
  Darren stayed with the boys and Chester while Mum came with me – she didn’t want to miss out on this.

  As we neared the pen, a hairy-looking pig the size of a small dog came running over, grunting loudly.

  ‘Hello, boy!’ Mr Murray greeted him with a scratch behind the ears. Pumbaa had the same smiley mouth as Chester, and even though he was bigger than our pig, he was still very cute. Pumbaa was the stud of the farm. He had fathered countless piglets.

  Mr Murray beckoned us into the pen. Mum was somewhat wary – she was wearing a nice pair of tailored trousers – but it was too late to back out now. Pumbaa was lapping up the attention. He rolled over on his side and waited for his master to tickle his tummy.

  ‘Watch this, he loves the broom.’ Mr Murray started sweeping the boar’s belly with the bristles.

  Mum and I burst out laughing; it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen.

  All of a sudden, Pumbaa had had enough, and rocketed to his feet. His hackles went up.

  ‘Oooh, he’s getting a bit frisky.’ Mum edged away.

  As she opened the pen gate, Pumbaa tried to shoot through her legs, nearly knocking my mum off her feet. Luckily, Mr Murray was there to catch her in his arms – to her great embarrassment. I was now roaring with laughter, while my mum’s cheeks turned a shade of scarlet.

  ‘I think we should get back to Sam and Will,’ Mum said, blushing and straightening her jacket.

  We returned to the piglet barn to find Will cuddling Chester. Sam was standing by his side, flapping with eagerness to hold him again. He would have plenty of chances to do that later. Right now, it was time to bring our new baby pig home.

  Katie leaned into the pen and grabbed a handful of straw to put in the cat carrier, so that it would smell familiar to Chester. Chester didn’t squeak, he didn’t squeal, he didn’t make any noise as Katie lifted him inside. He was the perfect, well-behaved pig. This is going to be so easy! I thought.