THIS LITTLE PIGGY
“Butterball”), blessed with a perfect
fat). But it was the combination of
bloodline I mentioned, a purple ear. I
come to know as talents, that really
complexion, and thanks to that
g u e s s t h a t ’s w h y I w a s n a m e d V i o l e t . ( I know another Violet, a Lily, a Daisy, a
I had a temper, which everyone I knew
to me it shows a remarkable lack of
Fo r y e a r s a n d y e a r s , I c o n s c i e n t i o u s l y
imagination). But Violet I am. stock goes back to the Middle Ages. We know (but he didn’t) that images
of pigs have been found on Neolithic
pottery in Zhejiang, China, so clearly his tracing our lineage back to the European origins of the family is recent history. It never occurred
to me to question why he bothered. I supposed, in his last years, he
yearned for what we all long for -
me included - an understanding of
o n e ’s p l a c e i n t i m e , a n d t h e d a r e - I -
t h i n k- i t p o s s i b i l i t y t h a t y o u m i g h t b e remembered af ter you are gone. But I digress... This is a picture of me when I was a
lot younger. Still plump with baby fat (my father affectionately called me
74
set me apart.
Pa n s y , a n d t w o R o s e s . I t ’s b e y o n d m e
why offspring are named af ter flowers;
According to my father, our paternal
character traits as well as what I would
From Day 1, my beautiful violet ear played an impor tant role in the
development of my identity. My
mother had a favourite story of giving bir th to a violet-eared female, but
being brought a nondescript brown
eared piglet to suckle. She caused a
ruckus, and all was worked out, but I have always wondered - what if I had ended up with a different family...?
I might have grown up in Svinbergen, Scandinavia, rather than Swindon, England (the latter not exactly a
said was related to my purple ear.
endeavoured to assess whether there was any substance to this proclam-
ation, but I cannot say I have seen any evidence of it in my own behaviour.
But there were other things too. I was stubborn. (The other piglets called
me “pig headed”, which always hurt my feelings.) And I was a day-dreamer,
always wanting to be somewhere else, to see new and wondrous things,
curious to know what life was like in other places. I had a predisposition for intellectual musings, I wrote poetry, and I could sing.
place you boast about coming from!)
Most of the other pigs pretended
A violet ear was just one physical
but this little piggy knew - and so
manifestation of being different. Of
course I was self conscious about my
weight (“porker” was a frequent taunt I endured, to which my mother always replied that I was “big boned”, not
they knew something about something, did they, really - that most of it was bluster and pretence. I knew I could s i n g . I m e a n , I c o u l d R E A L LY s i n g . I
could tap any rhythm on command with absolute accuracy. I could harmonise