Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes (31 page)

On 19 May, Dave organises a meeting of the IDAG in the Parish Hall. One hundred and fifty people pack the room to capacity.
In his opening speech he sets out the arguments: 'Bus fares will have to increase, some taxi fares will more than double.
One of my concerns is the environment. Over the last week I have been doing a survey of the traffic passing through the north
end of Ditton Street. Currently, I reckon a one-way system would increase the mileages driven within Ilminster by at least
6,800 miles per week. That's over a quarter of the way around the world! Think of the pollution and global warming.'

Opinion is canvassed as to whether there should be a march from the town centre to Dillington House for the next meeting.
The idea is quickly abandoned out of worry that older people, who won't be at work at that time, might not manage to get up
over the hill, and that the march would end up being poorly attended and thus fuel to members of the local council who support
the one-way scheme. Jennifer and Dave have printed posters for the shop windows advertising the next meeting and urging as
many as possible to attend. Over a cup of tea in our garden, she tells me that she fears the break-up of the community if
Tesco is allowed to have everything its own way and the shops in Silver Street start going broke. I ask her how she defines
community and she immediately says, 'There wouldn't be a Christmas shopping evening if we didn't have the small shops. And
I wouldn't be able to go out to the shops, discover I'd
left my purse at home and still be able to come home with food for supper.'

Politicians like to eulogise the importance of communities but do little to maintain them. The separation between those who
make decisions and those who bear the impact of them is one of the most destructive aspects of corporate globalisation. The
board members at Tesco head office don't give a fig about whether Bryan Ferris and Clinton Bonner go broke; their decisions
are taken purely to maximise corporate profit, without any sense of who will be affected. Over in Chard, Colin Rolfe and his
fellow workers at Hygrade are now only days away from their factory being shut. Again, the footprint of Tesco is stamped all
over a decision that will have disastrous implications for a local community. There is something hugely reassuring and quite
irreplaceable about doing business with your neighbours and with others who have a vested interest in the community. Communities
aren't created by anyone single thing and they can't be created overnight, as planners and politicians fondly imagine every
time they sign off the plans for a new 'dormitory' town. Communities grow out of people stopping at the teashop or the pub
for a beer, getting advice from the grocer about how long to cook the new potatoes, or ideas for a recipe from the butcher,
from comparing opinions with other customers at the baker's and nodding hello to an acquaintance in the chemist's. They grow
out of shared interests and concerns: how's your daughter doing, did your dad get his hip operation, how was the holiday?
Individually each exchange is trivial, but added together they weave themselves into something unique. The sum of all those
casual encounters creates a feeling of respect and trust, a resource in times of personal or neighbourhood need.

'Can you imagine,' I say to Jennifer, 'going into Tesco and saying that you've left your bag at home, and can you have tonight's
dinner on credit?' We laugh together, but it isn't a laughing matter. The global economic system under which we function shatters
communities in its wake and, once shattered, it is almost impossible to glue things back together. Profit has become the sole
pursuit of our society and it has overthrown morality as a way of deciding the validity of a decision. That makes it all right
for three hundred men to be chucked out of work in Chard, because it will make more money for Tulip and Tesco, and all right
for Tesco to move into Ilminster and change the traffic flow, because it will make more money for the head office. It is considered
sissy to be concerned about the worries of little people, as though a politician would be seen as less powerful and macho
if he said that there needs to be a limit on economic progress. But study after study has proved that once basic needs are
met, money does not enhance the happiness quotient of humankind.

Still, there's no denying that there is a lively sense of involvement and anticipation in Ilminster. The shops are all displaying
protest signs and leaflets with the times of the next town meeting. In preparation for the meeting a Battle Bus has been hired,
which will leave the town square at one o'clock to take anyone without transport out to Dillington House in time for the meeting.
Tickets are on sale for £5, but that sum will be refunded when you get on board. On the way to Mr Rendell's I bump into Mr
B senior, a clutch of leaflets in his hand and an undeniable spring in his step. There is much talk about 'last­ditch efforts'
and 'final stands' and 'now is the time to be counted'.

Sometime during her first night with Robinson, Babe digs a hole under the fence between his run and the sows' woodland home
and escapes, virginity intact, back to the safety of life among the girls. 'Typical woman,' David says dryly. 'She's going
to give in sooner or later.'

Just after lunch on 23 May, Bramble goes peacefully into labour, lying on her side on a thick bed of straw, breathing deeply
and evenly until the moment when she gives a shudder and a loud grunt, flexes her hind leg upwards, and out slither the wet
little piglets, sometimes nose first, sometimes feet first. With the umbilical cord firmly attached and a coating of mucus
all over their bodies, the little pigs sneeze and cough to catch their first breaths. But within seconds they are up on their
feet, struggling to find purchase on the straw, groping their way round Bramble's fat back legs towards her teats. Josh and
I, who've never seen piglets being born before, crouch on the straw and rub Bramble behind the ears. By nightfall she's given
birth to ten.

Even though they are Robinson's babies and he's a pure-breed saddleback, they all look like Gloucester Old Spots, pink and
spotty and naked, with silky ears lying flat against their heads. While Bramble is deep in labour, David notices Guinness
shoving her shoulders against the gate into Robinson's run, trying to get in where Babe has just broken out. Wondering if
she is on heat, he opens the gate and Guinness shoots through. Robinson is instantly aboard. They stay locked together for
a full twenty minutes, not moving, staring straight ahead, looking bored and disinterested, barely exchanging a grunt. When
Robinson has finished he lies down under a tree and goes to sleep while, a few feet away, the first Mrs Robinson puffs and
pants and brings his first ten children smoothly into the world.

11

The Midsummer Pig Roast

Six days before the Dillington meeting Bryan assembles the towns' traders to decide how best to structure the face-to-face
encounter with the councillors. Thirty minutes will be allocated to the public and no one individual is allowed to speak for
more than two minutes. Bryan suggests that those who wish to speak should have specific points to make, not general objections
based on future fears. However well-founded these might turn out to be, he knows that this isn't going to cut the mustard
with the councillors. To date, 4,344 people have signed the petition objecting to the one-way system and the names have been
sent to the town council. Bryan also said that he's sent two letters to Terry Leahy, asking for Tesco's comments on the impact
of the one-way, but so far the superstore's CEO hasn't bothered to reply.

Richard Westworth, owner of Sarah's Dairy, the cheese shop on the site where David's uncle once ran his butcher's shop, reports
on the impact of a recently implemented one­way system in nearby Tiverton, where he has a branch of the dairy. Although a
bigger town, Tiverton echoes Ilminster's current predicament because the one-way system was implemented to accommodate increased
traffic following the opening of a Tesco superstore. His business is down 30 percent, and a local wine merchant, The Jolly
Vinter, has suffered 25 percent losses. Richard thinks several shops might close before the end of the year. David Bailey
reiterates his environmental concerns about the extra miles cars will be travelling. The question of the emergency services
and the increased distances they would have to travel is also discussed.

Sitting behind me in the Minster Rooms beside the church, Councillor Adam Kennedy mutters his objections to every point. 'All
these issues have been discussed when the planning was originally approved,' he announces. There are angry murmurs around
the room.

Bryan ploughs on with the central point of the meeting. It is important, he says, that the issue of the road is kept separate
from the issue of the supermarket. But, as it becomes apparent just what has happened, that is clearly impossible. Under the
arcane methods by which planning works in this country, the decision to build a supermarket couldn't be granted until the
traffic flow was changed. But at the time that the town considered the traffic flow, no one knew which supermarket was bidding
to come to Ilminster, or how big it was going to be. Additionally, at the time of the road decision, everyone understood that
the car park would remain where it was, and the store would be built further out of the town. Now the situation is radically
different: the supermarket is going to be built in the car park, the car park is being pushed out into the fields, and the
store that is coming is Tesco, the biggest and probably the most ruthless of the big four.

David has seen a cable TV programme about a couple with a farm in Devon: they've got pigs and sheep and cows but their real
money comes from city folk who want to work on the farm and pay £200 a week for the privilege.

'That's quality, what a deal . . .' he keeps saying, as we're walking round the nursery working out when the different vegetables
will be edible. 'We could buy a caravan and park it over here.' He points to the area under the corner of the walls, at the
end of the rows of herbaceous plants. 'To think they'll pay
us
to work
here.'

'Why don't we just stick them in with the chickens, in tents, or in the huts?' I ask. He beams. He thinks I'm serious. I imagine
David trying to rent out what is left of the pigs' caravan in the wood and we both start laughing. But it isn't such a bad
idea: David would be a great teacher to anyone who wanted to learn the ropes, but I know that it is just further confirmation
to him that people in the cities lead grim and deprived lives. Ever since we began the project I've been trying to persuade
him to come and visit us in London, to see for himself just how much money topiaried box balls, or privets shaped like clouds,
or bay trees sculpted into descending spheres sell for in the posher London garden centres. I know he doesn't believe that
they can fetch several hundred pounds apiece. Like paying to live in a caravan and working ten hours a day, breaking your
back weeding carrots, it's just another sign of the insanity of city folk.

Just before the end of May, I spend the evening with Zoe and Colin Rolfe at their house in Chard. Hygrade is now in its last
days. Of the workforce of 305, 282 are still without jobs and the factory gates will shut for the last time in less than five
weeks. Colin and the union representatives have fought hard: Tulip is also closing another one of its meat packing plants
in nearby Chippenham, making a total of 850 workers qualifying for redundancy. Another £850,000 has been wrested from the
management, to be divided up according to length of service. For Colin, with only a little over two years' service to his
record, it means another £400, but for some of the workforce it takes their final settlement to five, six, seven, even eight
thousand pounds.

The few that have found jobs have found them in the food sector, but the wages are low and most jobs involve travelling. Colin's
mate Lance, who held the rank of supervisor at Hygrade, earning around £18,000 a year with overtime, is taking a menial job
at Ilchester Cheese which pays only £5.50 an hour and involves an hour's commute a day if he wants to carry on living in Chard.

Colin plans to go on working with Tony Dowling to try to change the law about redundancies: the minimum £290 per worker per
year in work was originally intended to apply only when a company had gone bankrupt and the workforce faced being laid off
with no money at all. 'That's what it was instituted for, but what's happening is that successful companies are using it as
a guideline for how little they can pay. If the firm hasn't gone broke, we want to see redundancies being fixed according
to the weekly pay each person has been receiving.' We are sitting in their neat, orderly kitchen. Outside, Jack is playing
in the small garden. I'm annoyed with myself for forgetting to bring a bottle of wine or a gift of some sort. We're drinking
tea, but it's now seven o'clock and I suspect that they'd like a drink.

'I've had an offer of working as a store man in a packing company,' Colin says, 'but none of us has any qualifications. They've
set up a Skills Analysis Training to help people find jobs, but they're only interested in getting you a job, any old job,
not in helping you find a job that might be different, or better, or require a bit of new training. It's all about keeping
the unemployment figures down. I know that I've got this job for the simple reason that I ha ve a licence to operate a forklift
truck. And that's it. It's not because I've got Alevels in English and maths, or because I once stood as the Labour candidate
for this region.'

Colin is starting work on 5 June, and he doesn't plan to stay for long. He's hoping to work in one of the council-run homes
for troubled young adolescents in Chard, a job he could do for three days a week, spending the rest of his time working with
the union to try to ensure that others in his position don't get screwed by the vagaries of the redundancy laws.

'All this has made me pretty sure of one thing: I don't want to go on working till I drop, making profits for some bloke in
Denmark, or some geezer sitting in Tesco's head office.'

'Colin would be great with young kids in trouble.' Zoe beams at him with pride. They're in this together, as a couple, and
their affection is solid and durable. 'Because Colin is getting a job straight away, we won't have to live off the redundancy,'
she continues. 'But lots of the guys, they haven't done anything about finding work. They just seem to think, hey, great,
I'm going to be getting five or six thousand pounds, so much more money than I've ever had in my life, and I can live off
that for months. What's the worry, what's the problem? There'll be another job.'

Lots of them, Colin says, have a staggering level of debt: £2,000 on one credit card, £1,500 on another, £1,800 to the bank,
a mortgage, loans from stores to cover the cost of TVs and fridges and cars. One of their friends owes over £18,000 and Colin
is worried that he's not planning on using his redundancy money to start clearing his debt.

'It just hasn't hit them yet what is going to happen,' he says. Zoe gets up to put the kettle on for another brew. There's
a small telly in the corner and Jack's toys and books are spread out at one end of the table. 'It will, and soon. The first
lot of us are leaving at the end of next week and I think that will really bring it home.'

I ask if people are frightened yet. He shakes his head. Not yet, but they will be.

Colin is also worried about the growth of racism in the town. Chard, he reckons, has coped well with the influx of Portuguese
workers, who now make up almost half of the Oscar Mayer workforce of eight hundred. He grins. 'Everyone thought there'd be
a barney when the European Cup was on in 2002 and our guys were playing the Portuguese in Portugal. But it went OK. But when
the factory shuts and there's some two hundred guys on the dole and there's just no work around here, then they're going to
be fair game . . . it wouldn't take much to stir it up.'

Chard is home for Colin: after he left school he went to London, where by twenty-two he was the manager of the Athena poster
shop in Piccadilly's Trocadero Centre. He'd commute in from Stanmore every morning, hating the fact that no one talked to
each other on the Tube and that, even after a couple of years, he knew so few people in the anonymity of the city. He's had
several jobs in Chard, including running his own company, which was where he met Zoe, his second wife, but his world revolves
around a town, not around a job, and that's how he wants it to stay.

Zoe gives me a lift back to Ilminster. On the way she tells me that she ended up in the West Country because her father and
his sister were evacuated as children to Somerset: they were posted to Ashwell Farm House, one of the properties on the Dillington
estate. If I stand in the field where we're now growing carrots and leeks and fighting the pheasants over rights to our newly
sprouting cabbages, I can look to the west, and there is Ashwell Farm, a big, square stone building. Zoe wasn't sure exactly
where I lived, so she hadn't mentioned it before. Now we drive round there together, to have a look at the house, standing
like a black shadow in the dark of the night. We're both rather taken aback by the coincidence. 'My aunt, Brenda, she lives
in Ilton and I know she'd like to tell you about it. If I remember rightly, her mum, my gran, got a job up at the big house
as a cook. And I think my granddad worked in the gardens.'