Farmer Young

Farmer Young had a medium-sized farm, on which his piggery was his pride and joy. He had owned his farm, he would tell people, for many, many years but, he would add with a twinkle in his eye, the piggery only for many years. And over the course of these many years, Farmer Young’s joy of his piggery meant that it became his first farming port of call each morning, once Ronald, his cockerel, had proudly announced the new day with his quite tremendous crowing.

Farmer Young would struggle to admit that he liked Ronald’s impossibly loud alarm as it rebounded throughout the barns and outbuildings, but he would concede that it was very, very effective. And once Ronald’s soundwaves had finally petered out, and the various human and animal heartbeats around the farm had returned to a normal rate, and Farmer Young had stirred the sleep from his eyes and bid his also-rising wife a sleepy good morning dearest, he could undertake his morning routine.

Rising together, Farmer Young and his wife took it in turns to draw the curtains each day, and allow the warmth of the sun, if there was any around, to spill into their bedroom. If it was very cold weather, they may have filled their bedroom’s small fireplace with kindling and old newspaper from the basket on the hearth the previous evening, and left it to smoulder and glow and crackle itself out overnight. Old houses, especially old farmhouses, were designed with a certain warmth and robustness in mind, Farmer Young often mused, sparing a thought for those whose houses were reliant on distinctly impersonal central heating systems.

When the couple had risen and drawn, they would clad themselves in dressing gowns, and wander along the hallway to the bathroom to wash their faces and brush their teeth, side by side, in the twin, cream-coloured sinks that had stood in the farmhouse as long as it was built. Farmer Young’s wife would then insist that he take his ration of pills that the doctor had prescribed, as he wasn’t terribly good at remembering.

I don’t want you to be like you were when they took the pigs that last time, Farmer Young's wife would often tell her husband, her hand gently laid on his arm, his weak smile braver than she knew.

With their teeth cleaned, their faces scrubbed and Farmer Young's pills gulped down, the couple would then carrying out all of their other necessary morning bathroom business – in Farmer Young’s case, this was to be carried out in the little bathroom adjoined to the guest bedroom on his wife’s grave insistence, who after several years of morning disharmony concerning the matter, refused to let him use the same bathroom as her for what she called his morning unpleasantness.

I love you, but I could never love what that bottom of yours is capable of, his wife had told him on many an occasion. But by having been sequestered to a little bathroom of his own for his morning unpleasantness, Farmer Young had shrewdly turned his ostracization into an indulgence for paperback novels. The little bathroom had become a miniature library of sorts, featuring as it did a very long and wobbly shelf chaotically lined with paperbacks that Farmer Young had picked up for 50p here or even £1 there, if it was a big one, from the surrounding towns’ charity shops and jumble sales.

Pushing his way into the little bathroom each morning, Farmer Young would glance at his paperbacks, recognizing each of them with all their different spine colours and titles in a variety of fonts, author’s names, and the pleasant memories of a good read that stirred within him upon casting his sleepy morning eyes along the haphazard row.

Farmer Young loved all different sorts of tales, and would happily dip into macabre collections of ghost stories, or perhaps become engrossed by any one of his number of coldly-written spy novels whose protagonists seemed to be forever wandering around desolate, rainy European cities and meeting austere men in hats. Once they met, they were forever swapping information or money, or chasing or, occasionally, even killing a person, or helping to bring down an oppressive regime – all of this in between seducing impressionable young ladies, or coming up with imaginative ways to break into hotel rooms, or checking if their own hotel room had been imaginatively broken into.

So it was a variety of fiction that entertained Farmer Young as he carried out his morning duties in that little bathroom, and often he would be sat reading, lost in some tall tale or other, long after his movement had finished and his bottom had gotten very cold and pins and needles had started to make his legs feel all fuzzy, and his wife would be calling from the landing, breezily imploring Farmer Young to join her and the rest of the country in doing something constructive with his day.

At this, Farmer Young would quietly grumble, get to an appropriate part of the story, close the crinkly pages of his paperback after inserting his tattered old leather bookmark band and finish up in the little bathroom, already eagerly anticipating the next morning’s ghostly tale, or love story, or high seas caper.

The books’ pages, which were generally already old and yellowing, had been made yet more crinkled and brittle by the slightly damp conditions of the little bathroom, and each morning he would weakly pledge to take the books back to a charity shop so that its cycle of fundraising could continue, and furthermore, that he would pay a man from Barry's Electricals - maybe even Barry himself, should he be bothered - to install an extractor fan.

Farmer Young and his wife would then amble downstairs together, smiling upon hearing the faint padding of paws and clacking of claws as their ageing Jack Russell, Percy, and even more ageing Persian cat, Prunella, rose to either immediately prowl towards their food bowl (Prunella), or stiffly amble over to the Youngs, offering a cold, wet nose, a warm tongue, and a coyly waggling tail (Percy).

Farmer Young and his wife would oblige their pets with an affectionate dispensing of strokes and cooed greetings, before teaming up to pour fresh water for them both and fork morsels of expensive, juicy meat that Percy and Prunella's desirous, imploring faces had persuaded Farmer Young into buying over at the animal feed shop near the station.

Once his regular weekday breakfast of thickly buttered toast topped with a drizzle of homemade raspberry or gooseberry jam had been washed down with a huge mug of strong, sweet tea, it was time for Farmer Young to pull on his wellington boots, whistle Percy to his paws, and open the very old, very creaky front door and set off to the piggery to begin his daily chores. His wife would wish him a nice day’s work as her husband and Percy sauntered away, as she sploshed hot, foaming water over the breakfast crockery, as 60’s and 70’s easy listening classics drifted from their wireless.

Now undoubtedly the head pet of the house, Prunella would slink across the kitchen’s large flagstone tiles, mulling over whether to snootily inspect Percy’s bowl for leftover snippets of meat that she could somewhat less-than-snootily nibble at, or simply to laze about on a comfortable-looking sofa or an inviting, freshly-made bed until entertainment presented itself to her.

A busy weekday seeing to the needs of his animals, before returning to the farmhouse for a welcoming plateful of one of his wife’s hot, cooked dinners, before he would go over his farming administration whilst sipping on a huge, steaming mug of coffee, was a fine thing for Farmer Young, but it didn’t compare to his weekends, and especially his Saturdays. Almost the king of the days, dearest, Farmer Young would declare to his wife as early in the week as Wednesday afternoon, as he looked ahead to his weekend.

Farmer Young truly loved Saturdays. The week would always have been busy, and the weekends not too different – but, come Saturday, he allowed himself an extra thirty minutes snoozing in bed once Ronald had crowed. Then, Farmer Young would snuggle up with his wife, whilst the weather shone, rained, or blew outside. Farmer Young loved to slip off his pyjamas, gently raise his wife’s nightie, and nestle his thighs against her milky, round, bottom cheeks before whispering sweet words into her ear, his huge, shovel-like hands beginning to slowly explore her curves. “Oh James”, she would softly reply, in an amenable voice. Some Saturdays, anyhow.

Saturday breakfasts were another boon of the weekend’s arrival. After their extra minutes in bed, and the increased rush of endorphins that were sizzling between Farmer Young and his wife, a full and scrumptious breakfast was called for. Enormous speckled eggs, freshly fetched from his team of free range hens were cracked open and poured onto a sizzling pool of butter in the almighty frying pan by his wife, and these, huge, pure white splats of egg were soon slipping around the pan, crowned by large, deep, orange yolks that somehow managed to not burst and ooze out until Farmer Young poked them with his fork. Then they were ready to be joined on Farmer Young’s breakfast plate by a brace of thick, grilled sausages and halves of tomato, a large scoop of baked beans, and whatever else his wife had managed to concoct.

But the king of days would still involve a heavy dose of farming, and after letting his breakfast sink down, whilst perusing the local paper and discussing the day ahead with his wife, Farmer Young, ably assisted by Percy, now had work to do, and the piggery was calling.

Farmer Young had played around with his piggery routine over the years, but it invariably started with him striding inside the cavernous pig-house and roaring a ‘Good morning, my perky porkers!’ to his excitable pigs, before inspecting each pen for signs of overnight trouble and reaching inside to give each and every pig- except for the shy ones- a tickle or pat if he could reach. For their part, the pigs responded by snuffling Farmer Young’s oversized fingers, oinking - or in some cases, eerily screeching- their souls out in anticipation of eating their swill or ‘Tottenham pudding 2.0’, as Farmer Young futuristically insisted on calling the swirled mishmash mixed with modern pig feed that comprised their breakfast. Whilst they had never managed to raise little beings of their own, Farmer Young and his wife had always looked upon their animals as their family, however hard it was at times to raise them, and to let go.

For the warmer months, Farmer Young had knocked up two dozen or so pig-houses for his three dozen or so pigs out of corrugated iron and lengths of spare timber. The pigs were free to roam a two-acre field, filled with water-troughs, rudimentary scratching posts (he’d once noticed a friendly little piglet that he’d let into the farmhouse having a grand time itching away on Prunella’s post, much to his wife’s and the cat’s chagrin), made from old, rounded fenceposts that Farmer Young would painstakingly check for splintering to ensure that the scratching didn’t lead to any nasty scrapes, and piles of straw and hay scattered about for the pigs to dry themselves once they’d finished rolling in the huge mud-puddles that were nature’s contribution to the pigs’ fairweather lodgings.

The passing motorists enjoyed gazing at the young animals’ frolicking, and always laughed, or at least smiled upon reading a large sign in the field that Farmer Young had erected after a moderate brainwave early one Spring: New Pork City, it said.

The farmer/animal relationship was always sunny the day New Pork City re-welcomed its seasonal citizens, and remained pleasant until the City’s middle noun and its financial implications meant that the field was missing both its happy pigs and Farmer Young’s contented chuckling.

But, with it being deep into a particularly blowy, snowy and chilly winter season in which we now catch up with Farmer Young, the pigs have been brought back in from their field to the piggery.

The pigs snuffle about in the snow, whilst he keeps a watchful eye on the strange, boisterous creatures with whom he shares

the farmland.

Farmer Young is attempting to reshuffle a few groups of pigs about, in order to split up a couple of boys who seem to have taken something of an ear-nibbling dislike to each other overnight.

This performance has played out on countless mornings at the piggery, and today’s extra snap of cold in the air has Farmer Young daydreaming of the forthcoming spring, and his pigs in their field, and his bottom lip wobbles, and his heart flushes, as he momentarily recalls the horrible fallout that swarmed him the last time that they took the pigs.

He takes a moment to set himself, and leans against the piggery’s feed room door. The crushing days which any farmer sees the animals he has reared, tended, cared for and fed are always bereft of chuckles, tickles and joy, when they are collected and driven away to the horrible place.

But these are farming facts of life Farmer Young thinks to himself, rather fatalistically. Images and memories of his time with the pigs run through Farmer Young’s mind, along with a few reassuring soundbites that he isn’t sure if he’d ever really believed in.

Well, I’m pleased to have known them and made their little houses and found toys for them. Shared apples with them. Varied their Tottenham pudding… And there will be more pigs, soon. More little souls, in pink, white, black and each with their own distinctive pigginess.

All will be okay.

These thoughts have been comforting Farmer Young for quite a few years now, although he isn’t really sure what comfort is meant to mean anymore.

Well then, Farmer Young had thought the last time he had surveyed the emptying fields, comfort me a-bloody-gain then. His huge hands were restless, his fingers knitting themselves around each other, deep in the pockets of his itchy, baggy, not very comfortable at all really trousers as he gazed at the disappearing, wiggly tails of his pigs, who were wondering just what on earth was going on, as an impatient gaggle of men unceremoniously hurried them onto the ramp of an ancient, grimy, double decker lorry to be driven away to the horrible place, as black rain began to sweep through Farmer Young’s mind.

And it fell long after the tailgate had been slammed shut, and the squeals of the pigs grew fainter and fainter as the lorry sped up the long track, spilling straw as it picked up speed, then slowed to turn onto the motorway, where it again sped along parallel with the empty New Pork City, until it disappeared from Farmer Young’s view, and from his life.Although the black rain was a regular caller to Farmer Young, the last time it had stretched on and on, until his wife had finally persuaded him to drive over to the town and consult with kindly old Dr Prentice, who had listened patiently to the couple describe how the twinkle had dulled in his eyes, and how his chuckle hadn’t risen from his chest since they didn’t know when. Leaving the surgery, Farmer Young had clutched his wife and a prescription for antidepressant medicines, which they had picked up from the town chemist and went home to begin Farmer Young’s recovery process.

Over the next few weeks, Farmer Young’s tummy and brain and outlook on life got used to the little white tablets as they fizzed through his systems, and aided his wife in restoring purpose and dignity into his work and his zeal.

I thought I was over all this silliness, thinks Farmer Young as the black rain rages, and the coldness of the winter wind bites at his old man's body, and the fire in his eyes dims.

Farmer Young now moves from the feedroom door, and slumps down against the first pen along. A pair of particularly inquisitive floppy-eared male piglets

Immediately bumble over to sniffle and snuffle at the peculiar sight of Farmer Young down at their level. They nibble his checkered farmer’s shirt, and their increasingly frantic snuffling with their snouts lends his exposed forearms a smidgen of moist warmth, before he eventually finds an empty pen, and lays prone on a mixed bed of straw, pig droppings, until he is joined at his side by a confused and whimpering Percy.

And there the pair lay, surrounded by a blanket of oinks, and dabs of snow that are blown in by the biting winter wind.

When he has not turned up for a ladle or two of his favourite Saturday winter lunch - a simmering bowlful of thick vegetable soup accompanied by a doorstop-sized slice of heavily-buttered bread - Farmer Young’s wife makes a rare foray into the depths of the farm, until, alerted by a cacophony of particularly excited oinking, she makes her way into the piggery.

Seeing Farmer Young and Percy flat out and shivering in the pen, her face drops, and she knows that the rain has fallen again through her husband’s mind.

Dropping to the floor, ignoring the droppings, Farmer Young’s wife joins the pair, slides her arms around them as best she can, and waits for her husband to speak.

It’s back, dearest. Those pills, I thought they worked, I thought I was back.

She tightens the huddle.

And now look where I’ve ended up. A silly old farmer, laid up in a bloody pig pen…. crying in the pig shit, because I can’t even…. I can’t even BE a blummin’ farmer.

She allows his words to breathe, and increasing her grip on her husband tighter yet, lets him feel her love.

You haven’t ended up, James. You end up dead, we all end up dead, but you are living and flourishing now, and doing your best to make the circle of life that we’ve chosen to be as fair and as happy for these little beings as you can. You aren’t owed anything except the chance to be the best that you can be, and boy oh boy I know how good, and loving and caring you are. I know it, James. I know.

He opens his eyes, and it seems that a twinkling of love has been relit.

They clamber to their feet and paws, shoo the pigs back into their pens, and then go back to the farm house kitchen for a fine lunch of vegetable soup and bread.

Come the new Spring, New Pork City’s sign is taken down, and burnt along with some other bits and pieces that have been laying around on Farmer Young’s not doing very much at all for far too many years.

But the pigs are there, all three dozen of them. Farmer Young and his wife, Belinda’s, three dozen pet pigs.

Originally published in the collected anthology Insights: Fifteen Stories Exploring Disability, Claret Press (2018).