What Did You Do In Your Summer Holiday?

Contributed by Dan Lester on 16/08/10

Mike was still talking about killing pigs when the desserts arrived. “I didn’t use the bolt gun that often,” he said, scooping some cream off the side of his cake with a finger and then licking it off. “Too much of a hassle. It was usually a lot easier just to pick them up by the back legs and smash them.”

“Smash them?”

He put a spoonful of cake into his mouth then continued. “Yeah, swing them round and smash the head against a rock. First time I did that it took me a few swings, but after a week I pretty much always got them done in one.”

By this point he had eaten more than half his dessert, whereas I had barely started mine.

“The worst thing was the ones that died naturally. You’d have to get the body out quick or the others would start eating it pretty soon. If they’d been sick then you weren’t to touch them, so what I did was, I had this big metal hook that I’d drive into the head through one of the eye sockets, then I could drag the body out. There was one I always remember. I had a bit of trouble getting the hook in. Had to stamp on it a few times. Almost split the whole head open.”

By now he had finished his dessert. He looked over at my plate. “Are you gonna eat that?”