TIMOTHY AND BARNABAS

We began negotiating with the RSPCA for some rescue pigs even before we chose and bought the house with land. It took some months to get the land properly pig fenced (huge posts, strong wire), but we struck up a lasting friendship with the fencer and subsequently his family.  

Originally we were to have Babe and Rodney, a female and a male. However Babe bit Rodney’s ear very badly, and it was decided that we would have Rodney’s new arc companion, Percy. As they did not know their names, which had been for the RSPCA advertising site only,  we chose the biblical names Barnabas and Timothy.  A teaching colleague Mo suggested that three syllables were best for children and animals to hear and distinguish from other sounds.  Timothy and Barnabas were also very special people helping to evangelise the early church. We hoped that the pigs would promote understanding of pig sentience, intelligence and sheer fabulousness, as people saw their antics in the fields.

Timothy and Barnabas arrived in an RSPCA pigmobile at 10pm at night on 8th May 2018. Both RSPCA and pigs were quite exhausted after a drive from Hertfordshire. Anna and John had been trying to get them in the van all morning, and had been about to give up. It was a warm day, and obviously not one to waste in a van!  

They took to their new home – very spacious by comparison with the field they had left – where they were safe from other bullying pigs, and they chose the open air bed in a canopy of white mayflower and yellow gorse, rejecting the state of the art recycled plastic pig arc we had bought them. 

Another poem written in the first Creative Writing course was published in the journal Last Leaves, in October 2022.

THE RESCUED PIG’S ODE TO HIS EARTH

My early days I prefer to forget

rooting, rooted in the herbaceous earth

strong snout in meadowsweet mud, till sunset
creating areas for new plants to birth.

Hog wallows, like bowls, hold muddy rain water
humming with goodness for me and my brother.
Earth tastes especially sweet around plant roots.
Clay soil absorbs toxins, kind to our digestion
while the slippery, cool texture is balm to our resting,
washed down with spring rain, and native Scottish fruits.

 (poem published in the journal Last Leaves, October 2022)