Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950S

more money he made. Within a few weeks the sale of manure had covered the initial cost of the piglet.
     
    The whole of Nonnatus House, Sisters and lay staff alike, took a deep interest in the pig and Fred’s financial aspirations. We read in the papers that the price of meat was rising, and concluded that Fred had been very shrewd.
     
    However, the vagaries and vicissitudes of the market are notorious. Demand fell. The bottom dropped out of pigs.
     
    The blow was heavy. Fred was glum. All that feeding and mucking and raking. All the plans and hopes. And now the pig was hardly worth the cost of slaughter. No wonder the bounce had gone out of Fred’s bent little legs. No wonder his North-East eye drooped.
     
     
    Sunday was a day of rest in Nonnatus House. After church we were all gathered in the kitchen, having coffee and cakes left by Mrs B. from her Saturday bake. Fred was packing up to leave, but Sister Julienne invited him to join us at the big table. Conversation turned to the pig; his fag drooped.
     
    “What’m I goin’ to do wiv ’er? She’s costin’ me money to feed ’er an’ I can’t ge’ nuffink for ’er.”
     
    Everyone sympathised and muttered “hard luck” and “shame”, but Sister Julienne was silent. She stared at him intently, and then said, clearly and positively, “Breed from her, Fred. You could keep her as a breeding sow. There will always be a market for good healthy piglets, and when prices pick up, as they will, you could get a good price for them. And don’t forget, a sow always delivers between twelve and eighteen piglets.”
     
    Such advice - so obvious, so simple, yet so unexpected! Fred’s mouth fell open, and his fag dropped on to the table. Picking it up with an apology, he stubbed it out in the ashtray. Unfortunately it was not an ashtray; it was Sister Evangelina’s meringue, which she had been on the point of eating. She remonstrated with characteristic vigour.
     
    Fred was abashed and apologetic. He picked up the meringue, brushed off the ash, picked the fag end out of the cream, and handed it back to Sister Evangelina. “Piglets. Tha’s the answer. I’ll be a pig breeder. I’ll be the best pig breeder on the Isle.”
     
    Sister Evangelina snorted, and pushed the meringue away from her with disgust. But Fred noticed none of this. He was in a trance, muttering, “Piglets, piglets, I’ll breed pigs, that’s what I’ll do, I will.”
     
    Sister Julienne, practical and tactful, handed another meringue to Sister Evangelina, and said, “You will have to take the Pig Breeders’ Guide , Fred, and find a good stud boar. I can help you, if you need help in the first instance. My brother is a farmer so I can ask him to send a copy.”
     
    And that was how it all started. The Pig Breeders’ Guide arrived, and Fred and Sister Julienne were soon poring over it. It was disconcerting to see Fred attempting to read, because he had to hold the page to the left of his South-West eye in order to read anything at all. Even when he could make out a sentence or two, the language of pig breeders was completely foreign to him, and he could not have managed without Sister Julienne, who translated the strange jargon into comprehensible Cockney.
     
    A good stud boar was selected, a telephone call made, an agreement reached, and a small open truck arrived from Essex.
     
    Sister Julienne could hardly contain her excitement. Instructing Sister Bernadette to take charge of the House in her absence, she put on her outdoor veil and cloak, pulled a bicycle out of the shed, and cycled off to Fred’s house.
     
    The Essex farmer was a rural gentleman of settled habits. He had scarcely ventured beyond the peaceful confines of Strayling Strawless to Market Sodbury. His thoughts, as he drove his open truck with his stud boar into the heart of London’s Docklands, have not been revealed to us. The boar, resting his head contentedly on the side of the truck, jogged along for several miles without arousing much interest, but once in the more densely populated streets of London it was a different story. All the way through Dagenham, Barking, East Ham, West Ham, and down to Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs, the pig drew crowds. He was a large animal whose only exercise was that of copulation. His nature was comparatively docile, but in ten years his tusks had never been cut, and in consequence he looked more ferocious than he really was.
     
    As the truck turned in at the end of the