Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes
Read Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes Online
Authors: Rosie Boycott
Praise for
Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes
'[Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes]
is many things: a collection of anecdotes, a comment on the state of the countryside, an autobiographical memoir, a philosophical
reflection, but above all a critique of the food industry in Britain. It is engagingly written, but not always comfortable
reading . . . I gave a small cheer when I found, at the end of the book, that the farm had turned a small profit. But economics
were never the main point. The farm serves Boycott as an investigative tool, wielded with the hand of a master' Clive Aslet,
Sunday Telegraph
'As her lively account professes, Boycott emerges as a thoroughly good egg: hardworking, loyal and kind. She is interested
in everything around her . . . her heart is firmly in the right place . . . It has charm and wit as well as insight into the
forces of the rural economy . . . Who could fail to be won round by such a woman?' Cressida Connolly,
Spectator
'Rosie's conversion to country matters is a personal healing process and, for the rest of us, as spectators, a breathless,
boisterous field sport'
The Times
'An affecting, affirming journey of rebirth . . . It also offers a timely insight into the hardships of British farmers forced
to scratch a living from the land . . . It is compelling stuff, a poignant message for those who remain oblivious to how food
is produced. On a deeper, more personal level,
[Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes]
serves as a first hand account of nature's power to heal . . . an intensely personal voyage' Mark Townsend,
Observer
'It's a kind of autobiography, a snapshot of rural life, a discussion of the way that supermarkets are slowly strangling this
country and, most importantly, a description of a love affair . . . This is much more than just another book by a townie about
the joys of the countryside. Boycott has properly involved herself in the community, not just getting to know the people and
the land, but coming to understand the local impact of decisions taken hundreds of miles away' Josh Lacey,
Guardian
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A Nice Girl Like Me
Batty Bloomers and Boycott
All for Love
Spotted Pigs and
Green Tomatoes
A Year in the Life of Our Farm
ROSIE BOYCOTT
First published in Great Britain 2008
Copyright © Rosie Boycott
This electronic edition published 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
The right of Rosie Boycott to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978-1-40880-689-0
www.bloomsbury.com/rosieboycott
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CONTENTS
3.
The Luck of the Tailor of Gloucester
4.
Trees Are Excellent Listeners
To Charlie Howard, with love
The Wheel is come full circle, I am here.
Edmond in
King Lear
The wheel has turned full circle for me. It is a January afternoon; it has been raining and the light has faded early from
the winter skies. I've just come in from our Somerset garden, where a man called Charlie has been telling me where to plant
bulbs (we are late getting the last lot in the ground). He is, at times, a bit critical of my technique. Forty years ago,
I was also often in a garden; this one was in Shropshire and I was regularly instructed in the arts of gardening by another
man called Charlie. He was a bit of an autocrat, too, when it came to the finer points of rearing and tending plants. The
two Charlies are, respectively, my husband and my late father. In
many ways, therefore, I have not moved forwards, although there has been a lot of living in between my two gardening phases.
Without the inspiration of my father, I would not have discovered my love of the countryside, which became so vital and important
to me in the early years of the twenty-first century. I owe him a big debt and I like to think that, were he still alive,
he would have been pleased to see how his youngest daughter's life turned out. He would certainly have been surprised.
lowe thanks to many people. Our farm would not have been possible without Ewen and Caroline Cameron, David Bellew and his
mother and father, Dennis and Anne, and Wayne Bennett, the manager of Dillington Park, as well as Bob, Adrian, Mark and Julian.
To the many people in Ilminster and around us in Somerset who have made us welcome, and shared their stories, I owe my thanks:
Henry and Elizabeth Best, Clinton Bonner, Joe Burlington, Chris Chapman, Kit Chapman, Ellen Doble, Bryan and Elizabeth Ferris,
Mike and Patricia Fry-Foley, Richard Guest, Mark and Yseult Hughes, Nick Lawrence, Liz Leddra, Gillie Minnett, John and Mary
Rendell, and Colin and Zoe Rolfe.
I would also like to thank the following for giving me their time and sharing their knowledge: David Attenborough, Chris Blackhurst,
Jules Cashford, Monty Don, Andy Gossler, Trevor Grove, Revel Guest, Graham Harvey, Vicki Hird, Patrick Holden, Felicity Lawrence,
James Lovelock, Mike McCarthy, John Mitchinson, George Monbiot, Andrew Parker, Rose Prince, Joyce de Silva, Andrew Sims, Thorn
Steinbeck, Jeremy Thomas, Martin Warren and Francis Wheen.
My thanks are also eternally owing to Bob Simonis, a doctor in an hour of need, without whom I would, literally, not have
a leg to stand on in the garden or elsewhere. And to Rowley Leigh, our good friend and great chef, who bought our eggs and
vegetables for Kensington Place restaurant.
Many members of my family helped with the writing of this book, in particular Ander and Richard Parker, who spent many hours
recalling tales of farming past, and my sister Collette.
Thanks are also owning to Tobyn Andreae, who first encouraged me to write about our farm; Carole Bamford, for her generosity;
my friends Hannah Rothschild, Cindy Blake and Jennifer Nadel, who read the manuscript at various stages and were constantly
supportive; my cousin Charlie Viney for being both my friend and my agent; my editor at Bloomsbury, Michael Fishwick, for
being both patient and wise; my stepson-in-law, Charlie Glover, for taking the pictures for the cover; my stepdaughter, Miranda
Glover, for reading the proofs and being such a special friend; Nicola Easton, for all her help with the research; Sue Ayton,
for never giving up; and Katie Bond, Minna Fry, Tram-Anh Doan and Emily Sweet of Bloomsbury, who made the process so enjoyable.
By the start of 2007, we had ninety-three pigs running around on the farm, so, even though they'll never get to read this,
thanks are due to Bramble, Bluebell, Guiness, Babe, the Empress, Hyacinth, Robinson, Boris and Earl for being both excellent
pigs and excellent breeders.
I'd like to thank Francesca, Alex and Luke for being wonderful stepchildren, and my daughter Daisy for contributing so much
to the sum of my life's happiness. Finally, our farm belongs every bit as much to my husband, Charlie, as it does to me; for
that, and for so much more, thank you.
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Inside the red van the five pink piglets are asleep, sandwiched together between two bales of straw. It smells bitter, of
sour milk. They must have been fed on gruel; normally pigs don't smell at all. On their straw bed they are warm and they don't
want to come out. I hold the door open and make encouraging noises. One piglet opens an eye, looks at me and goes back to
sleep. I scramble into the van and grab the nearest pig round its fat little stomach. Immediately it starts shrieking and
squealing, waking up the others who look around in alarm, staggering to their feet and moving to the back of the van, as far
away from the door as they can. I carry the frantically wriggling pig a hundred yards to his new home and push him through
the gate into the run where five other Gloucester Old Spot males are watching his arrival with great curiosity.
Two years ago I would never have imagined that I would become the owner of a small group of pigs. In my life I've been many
things - mother, wife, journalist, writer, magazine editor, newspaper editor, radio and TV presenter, feminist, hippy, divorcee,
junkie, drunk and traveller - but pig-owner was never on the cards. It makes me wonder what really determines the course of
our lives - is it chance or the result of careful planning? If I think about my own life I come to the conclusion that it
has mostly been determined by chance, more akin to a game of roulette than a game which requires some skill, such as bridge.
Things happen for so many seemingly random reasons; choosing to answer the phone at the right moment, casual meetings at parties
and on aeroplanes, even having a good night's sleep which means you're more likely to say yes to an offer than no. There's
rarely been any strategy involved. The only element that links it all has been my willingness to say yes more often than no.
Due to chance, my husband Charlie and I have a house in Somerset and if I peel back the layers a little more, chance has followed
me down the long corridors of years. Charlie is my second husband. We knew each other when we were teenagers, lost touch for
twenty-seven years and met again in 1997. That was chance. I was editing the
Independent on Sunday
and he was sharing his legal chambers with the libel lawyer George Carman. George and I were friends and one day over lunch
he suddenly mentioned Charlie Howard. 'He sends you his love . . . you ought to ring him up.' Editing a newspaper doesn't
leave you much time for anything else, but I did pick up the phone and we did meet for lunch. Two years later we were married.
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By the time of our wedding, in a church in the New Forest with all our respective children playing parts in the ceremony,
my father was sliding into the fog of Alzheimer's, moving into a twilight world from which he would never return. While he
was able to live on his own, our country weekends were spent with him, at his family house outside Ludlow in Shropshire, but
in the spring of 2002, he suffered a series of small accidents. He fell down stairs, bruising his coccyx, then he fell into
a ditch in the field where he was walking his dog, and lay there for hours before he was rescued. The ever-present bad chest
which he had lived with for years turned into a bronchial infection. He went into hospital in the first week of May 2002 for
a course of heavy-duty antibiotics. Charlie and I brought him home on a Friday in mid-May, but as the evening wore on his
breathing grew increasingly laboured; he was disorientated and confused and, for the first time, he was having trouble walking.
We made a bed for him downstairs and his doctor intimated to Charlie that he might not last the night. He did, but only just.
The following day, Dad was back in an ambulance, heading once again for hospital. It was two days before my birthday and I
perched beside him in the back of the van, surrounded by tanks of oxygen, stethoscopes and defibrillator machines, certain
that this would be the last time he would ever see the home he had loved for the last forty years.
Three months before that May morning, Charlie and I had gone to Somerset to stay with Ewen and Caroline Cameron. I had met
them in the 1990's when I'd been going out with one of Ewen's old college friends. Like Charlie and me, we had lost touch,
meeting again in the late 1990's in a more official capacity when Ewen was in charge of the Countryside Agency and I was editing
the
Daily Express.
The
Express
had just run a hugely successful campaign to keep GM food out of Britain and Ewen, in his capacity as head of the Countryside
Agency, had been giving intelligent newspaper interviews as to how New Labour could help revitalise rural Britain. I remembered
how much I'd liked him and his wife Caroline and so renewed the acquaintance. They came to dinner with Charlie and me, and
a year or so later they invited us down to Ilminster for the weekend.
Charlie was full of enthusiasm for the trip; he had grown up in the village of Charlton Mackrell, just ten miles northwest
of Ilminster. It was a cold, grey weekend but the rain held off and we walked extensively round Ewen's family estate which
he had been managing since his twenties. The old family home, Dillington Park, is now leased to the County Council and it
operates successfully as an adult education college. We approached the imposing house via the park, where oaks and field maples,
walnuts and chestnut trees stood leafless in the winter chill. Off to one side of the park, black-and-white Friesians were
grazing outside the gate to a square stone house, appropriately called the Dairy House, set in its own overgrown garden. It
was built of the honey-coloured local Ham stone, and in the pale winter light it looked cosy and inviting. Charlie asked who
lived there. Ewen said the current tenants were going to leave shortly.
Later that night, when we were getting ready to go to bed, Charlie voiced my own thoughts. Perhaps, even though Dad was still
battling on alone in his house, we should think about it. So the following day, before we left, we asked if the Camerons would
consider us as possible future tenants of the Dairy House. Two days after my gloomy ride in the ambulance with my father,
the phone rang in our London home. It was Ewen. Were we still interested? I knew that Dad would never again be going home
and that we would soon be selling his house. What on earth was I going to do with all that furniture? Our London house was
already overflowing with books, pictures, furniture and cooking equipment, the contents of both our lives. I said yes: it
would be a solution and a way to keep my feet in the country, at least some of the time. You see, chance comes in many forms,
and sometimes one gets one's chances from another's misfortunes.
Over the next two months, my elder sister Collette and I packed up our father's house, and at the beginning of August 2002
the removal van moved my half of my parents' home to the Dairy House. But that only explains a part of the story, the how
we got to Dillington part. It does not explain the pigs.
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The garden we inherited at the Dairy House had been created in the 1980s. Carved out of parkland, the incredibly rich soil,
fertilised by livestock for hundreds of years, soon produced a wonder of shapely trees, shrubs and herbaceous flowers. The
garden surrounds the house: in the front, to the south, there's a flagstoned terrace which soaks up the sun all year round.
Pink roses and mauve wisteria cover the south-facing wall, growing so fast that in summer the long wisteria tendrils sneak
in through the open windows and creep along the tops of the bookshelves. The main garden lies to the east, full of curving
beds and a circular yew hedge which surrounds the small pond and cuts the garden off from the wood, which you can reach either
via a small wooden bridge or through a beech archway that hangs over a wrought iron gate, with upturned horseshoes soldered
on the top. From almost every point in the garden you can look out across the park, at the stately oak trees, which shelter
the cattle from rain and sun, and the hill away to the south which rises up steeply towards the tangled hedge marking the
end of the open land. It had been a little neglected in the immediate years before our arrival, which, for any aspirant gardener,
is a pretty ideal situation. Charlie especially was entranced. He had grown up in the country and had always regarded the
city as a diversion in a life that would, eventually, find him back in the countryside. He had long been a frustrated city
gardener, growing peppers and tomatoes in pots on his sun-drenched terrace in Shepherd's Bush.
But here work was needed; in particular, several trees needed cutting down or cutting back to open up the views to the parkland.
We consulted Chris Wilson, the estate manager, who lives with his wife Rosie in a stone farmhouse on the other side of the
park. He dispatched Mark Bellew and Phil Wright, who worked on the estate, to help out. They arrived early one morning, armed
with a chainsaw and a fund of knowledge. The chainsaw hummed as the branches fell, our first steps to putting the garden back
to rights. But as each branch bit the dust, the scale of the work needed became more apparent. Charlie had been resistant
to having any help with the garden. In a fit of false heroics, he reckoned that, with my help, he could look after it all
on weekend afternoons. Sure, we needed some help with the trees, but that was only because we did not own a chainsaw. I wasn't
so sure: the garden was complex and richly planted and clearly high-maintenance. Over mugs of coffee, Mark told us that his
brother was a gardener and might be interested in helping us. Two days later, after walking the garden and discussing the
possibilities, David started work.
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Two years later, we had restored the main flower garden, planted an orchard, created a vegetable garden, and embarked on an
ambitious scheme to transform a wildly overgrown wood into a woodland garden, complete with a large pond, paths, a living
willow house, willow arches and huge sofas carved out of fallen oak trunks which had been positioned to look out over the
park. Then in the autumn of 2004, just as the main work was completed, David asked us if we would be interested in investing
in a plant nursery, which he would run as the full-time manager.