Interview transcript (part two of two)

• c/u pelham Cam 2 pelham (continues) The people were eating the grade of food that would in times passed have been below the standard for my porkers. It was that bad, that it would have been composted down for fertiliser. So you can imagine the sort of rubbish that was sent to me – all mouldy, scabrous, rotting, slimy, useless stuff. No good at all. No goodness in it for the pigs. I wouldn’t be surprised if instead of building them up for market, the pods I was giving them were carrying disease and all kinds of sickness. My pigs are very sensitive to sickness you know:

• to noddy, ian, Cam 3  pelham (continues) they can go down with general malnutrition of course, but then there’s

• c/u pelham Cam 2 pelham (continues) swine pox, buscellosis, Blue Ear reproductive and respiratory syndrome, tricinella, swine fever, hog cholera, metatron-gylosis and trotterrot. Oh, it’s a tricky business, rearing and fattening up porkers, you know.

• c/u Cam 3 ian terfeuher So your pigs were suffering then? Did any of those diseases take hold?

• c/u Cam 2 pelham As it happened, all of my porkers are perfectly clear of disease, but somewhat malnourished. Hardly any fat on any of ‘em!

• c/u Cam 3  ian terfeuher And it was on account of that they you had to lay off your farmhands?

• c/u Cam 2 pelham  Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

• to noddy, ian Cam 3  pelham (continues) The farmhand we’re here to talk about took himself off one night. Just left a

• c/u pelham Cam 2 pelham (continues) note about becoming inspired and having to go home.  I blame the parents, of course, no staying power, no commitment, no understanding of farming techniques and the needs of the livestock. Disgraceful, really, the youth of today.

• c/u Cam 3  ian terfeuher (nervous laughter) Can you read us the note he left?

• c/u Cam 2 pelham Certainly. (He seaches his pocket for a moment, and then pulls out a piece of paper, triumphantly) Ah yes, I have it here… (looks carefully at the paper, frowns) …no, that’s a receipt from HopsSlops U Like… (searches the other pocket, with much face-pulling and waggling of eyebrows) here it is. (he reads) ‘Dear Mr Pelham’ – at least you can agree he was brought up to be

• pull out to long shot, Cam 3 pelham (continues) polite – ‘I have come to my senses and can no longer look after your pigs. It was when my hunger led me to start imagining what the scabby pods might taste like. My pa’s hired men eat well every day, so I’m going to go home and ask my Pa if I can work for him, as I am no longer worthy to be called a son. Please forward my wages to Certainman Farm, Homeville. Yours, Jack.’

certainman (becomes animated) Did you say Jack? Of Certainman Farm?

ian terfeuher Yes, Mr Certainman, that’s why we have you on this programme. It was your son at Mr Pelham’s piggery!

• c/u Cam 2 certainman And he says he came to his senses, and returned in order to become a hired man?

• c/u Cam 3 ian terfeuher That’s right. So I suppose you took him in and gave him a job?

• c/u Cam 2 certainman I most certainly did not!

• c/u Cam 3 ian terfeuher You rejected your son?

• c/u Cam 2 certainman No, sir, I did not. But I didn’t take him on as an hireling or a farm hand. No, I ran to him and gave him…

• wide shot Cam 3  pelham You ran to him?

certainman I did, sir. I left my dignity behind, and welcomed my son back to the home. I kissed him and gave him gifts and reinstated him as my son.

pelham You gave him gifts? But he took so much fom you it nearly bankrupted you…

• push in to extreme c/u, Cam 2 certainman I know what he did, but he’s my son and I forgive him. I gave him my family ring, and new shoes and a coat and then I killed the fatted calf and we celebrated. For my son was lost, and is found; he was dead, but is alive!

• c/u Cam 3 pull back to long shot ian terfeuher (to camera 3) Well, there we have it. A remarkable story of survival through the famine, and of a forgiving father. And now back to Andrea in the newsroom for a travel update, and the sport and weather.

• c/u Cam 1 andrea Thanks, Ian; remarkable story! Now, travel news for tomorrow morning looks like there’s…

Interview transcript (part one of two)

pig farmer

• c/u Cam 1 andrea  For more on that story, we can now cross to the other side of the studio, where Ian Terfueher is speaking to the father of the man who seems to have landed on his feet and the pig farmer where his son ended up. Ian?

• wide shot Cam 2 ian terfeuher  Thanks, Andrea. Now, Mr Pelham, you’re the current owner of the pig Farm?

pelham  Yes, sir that I be.

• c/u Cam 3  ian terfeuher  Well, tell us, if you will, please, in your own words, what happened that night.

• c/u Cam 2  pelham  Us?

• pull back to wide shot Cam 3 ian terfeuher  (with an expansive wave of the hand) Myself, Mr Certainman Senior next to you, the camera, and all the many millions of viewers sitting in their living rooms at home…

• c/u Cam 2  pelham  Oh, yes, I see, Right, well, I have a farm and keep pigs. I know it’s not popular with everyone, but there’s a chance in a foreign country that some people might want ham or bacon or trotters or chops or chump steaks or snout or ears or lard. Or a nice leg of pork with some lovely crackling…

• c/u Cam 3 ian terfeuher  Yes, quite so. And what happened to your livestock?

• c/u Cam 2  pelham  Yes, right, I was coming to that. I have thirty… no, tell a lie, twenty nine pigs. But unfortunately I had to take the knife to one of them as my family was running low on things to eat. We can have lovely fresh chops and steaks and joints, and the rest can be salted down or hung in the chimney for smoking and curing and getting ready for ham and bacon and the local variation of prosciutto…

• c/u Cam 3  ian terfeuher  I understand. Tell us about the boy, Mr Pelham, please.

• c/u Cam 2 pelham  Right, I was getting onto that. My thir– twenty nine pigs haven’t been eating all that well of late, on account of the hardships and deprivations of the country. This economic downturn is hitting the smallholders really hard. We haven’t the infrastructure to cope with cashflow shortages…

• pull back to wide shot then slow push in to c/u Cam 2 certainman  (interrupts) You want to talk about cashflow shortages? I doubt you understand the sort of difficulties I had to endure. I was asked to find fully 30% of my wealth and make it liquid; I had to sell fields and buildings, and lay off several farmhands in order to gather the cash, and then I couldn’t make ends meet without selling more land and cutting off my nose to spite my face, as fewer fields meant fewer crops, which meant a smaller income, less wages to pay the hirelings, and so I had to let most of them go, and ended up with not enough of them when the time cane to harvest the crops I did have! It was pretty tough. Although I have to say that we weren’t hit by the crop failures; that would have been a disaster!

• wide shot Cam 3 pelham  Disaster, indeed. You would not have survived! I don’t quite understand – why did you have to give away a third of your wealth?

• c/u Cam 2  certainman  My younger son asked for it, and I agreed. I didn’t really think it through; I just saw that he needed to get away, to experience life and see the world – although what he ended up with was very nearly experiencing death, and only really seeing the worldliness.

• wide shot Cam 3  ian terfeuher  Ah, hahaha, yes, yes. But we’re rushing to the end of the story without really giving the viewers a chance to hear what happened. Now, Mr Pelham, you were telling us about your pigs…

• both interviewees Cam 2 pelham  Indeed. Oh, yes. Lovely. Plump and ready for market, they were. Some of the best porkers I had ever raised. Just needed another month of rich, full, healthy corn cobs and beans and ripe fruit and vegetables. It was a shame, a terrible shame, I tell you. (pause)

• wide shot Cam 3  ian terfeuher  (softly, with compassion) But that didn’t happen, did it?

• c/u Cam 2  pelham  No, no, no, no, no, too right it didn’t. Oh, yes, you’re right there. No, it didn’t happen. Not at all, not at all.

• wide shot Cam 3 ian terfeuher (becoming exasperated) Can you tell us why not?

• c/u Cam 2 pelham Why not? Why not what?

• wide shot Cam 3  ian terfeuher Why were your pigs not able to be fed with corn and made ready for market?

• c/u Cam 2 pelham The economic downturn, boy! I already told you, didn’t I? With the crops failing, there was not enough food for the people of the country, so there was never going to be any left over for the livestock, was there?

• to noddy, ian Cam 3 pelham (continues) The people had to eat thin, feeble vegetable waste matter.

to be concluded

Wise enough

Madam Sadie

Oh, it was sordid, yes, but a whole lot of fun while it lasted.

I always wanted to run a high-class gin joint, but never quite made it. So a ‘low-class drinking shop with an exclusive reputation’ was the best we achieved. Saucy Sadie’s Sarsapirilla ‘n’ Spirits A-Go-Go was a big success, for a while.

We had a long, highly popular bar, with a wide range of drinks available, including cocktails, shorts, beers, wines and vermouth; we provided snacks and light meals; we had a pool table and some gaming machines, too. There was a secluded back room for card games and doing deals – and the local police used to leave us alone (apart from the detectives who used to come to play poker, of course).

We had dancing girls, who would accompany gentlemen upstairs for a small consideration (so long as I got my cut, naturally) and no questions were asked, not even by the policemen. Some of the girls were more popular than others, as you mght expect.

I do recall one young man who seemed equally keen on all my girls, because when he came into the bar of an evening, he spread his money out on the table, and the girls would practically fight each other to get his attention, knowing that he was very generous and heavily loaded. We must have made an absolute bomb out of that fellow, you know.

Then the liquor licences became more expensive and we tried to branch out into the import-export game. We even set up a still in the back yard outbuildings, but the ingredients were hard to find and then income was dropping. Eventually, of course, we went the way of everyone in the district, and there was no food to cook, no grain to distill, no booze to stock our bar, and, naturally, no customers. The famine hit us very hard, and the girls had to find legitimate jobs in offices, factories, the homes of members of the nobility, kitchens, hospitals...

I survived, because I’d been wise enough to invest the surplus from my income into a small pig farm, which did okay even during the famine. The quality of meat we could produce was low, since the only food the animals got to eat was rotting pods and husks and other people’s throwaways. But we didn’t pay huge wages to the farmhands, so that all balanced out.

Yes, sometimes I wonder what happened to those girls I used to employ. And to the barstaff. Yes, and to the really down-on-their-luck men who looked after the pigs – some of them didn’t stick around for very long, it has to be said.

But I don’t worry too much about the customers. They always seemed to me to be able to look after themselves. They knew what they were doing was illegal, unwise, immoral perhaps. It was their choice.

After all, if I hadn’t provided them with the opportunity, someone else would, then they would’ve made all the profits, and there’s no point in letting anyone else walk away with the cash, is there?

Hasn't he had enough parties?

…sour grapes, anger, frustration, legalism from the older brother

Right from the start, I felt cross, I felt left out and I felt things were way out of my control.

For a start, there was no discussion about the way life was going to be for me. Oh, no. Father just upped and sold off a portion of his land to provide wonga for my younger brother to go splurging on booze, women, wildness and debauchery. Not a word to me about this.

Perhaps Father could have been sympathetic: ‘Johnny wants his inheritance, and the only way I can manage to give him one third of my property is to sell it off; this will of course mean we shall have to work a lot harder with what we have left to try to survive…’

At least he could have made it clear to me: ‘Your waster brother is being given a fabulous gift, while you shall have to stay to earn your living. Hard luck…’

It was too much to hope that Johnny might have said ‘I’m off! Fancy coming with me for the laugh?’

But no, I stay here. I work hard. I’m labouring with all my might to stay alive, unable to throw parties for my friends (although I am a bit worried about Caleb, who seems over-keen on partying with a goat, which strikes me as slightly perverse) and having to be the ‘good son’.

Every day, I get left alone in the fields, working with the hired men and the servants, because Father avoids any labouring – he just does his thing up on the roof. He really should let it go, realize that Johnny isn’t coming back, and put some effort into our survival.

And then (amazingly) the sad loser does come back, with some sob story about becoming a hired man, while Father, instead of going off the deep end, like he should have done, no, he goes berserk in the opposite direction and gives him full rights and privileges, plus a ring and a coat and shoes and a party (as if he hasn’t had enough parties).

I don’t even get an invite; I come in from working in the distant fields and discover this shindig in full swing and have to ask one of the servants what’s going on. ‘Master Johnny has returned and we’re all invited!’ he says.

So here’s Father, spending money that is effectively my inheritance on a Welcome Home Slap-Up Feed for the whole village to rejoice over this jerk who has done nothing but kick us in the teeth. Makes me mad!

I demand to speak to Dad, who comes out of the revelries to speak to me.

‘What’s the problem?’ he asks. He’s irritated with me for making him leave his guests, I suppose, but this just makes me even more angry.

‘I’ve been here all this time,’ I start explaining (yes, maybe a little loudly, I admit) ‘with little thanks, no opportunities to go a bit wild with my buddies, obeying you… and look what you do when this – ‘ I struggle to find a word which adequately captures way I feel, so settle for one of the first that comes to mind ‘ – this hooligan comes home, having blown all our money on women and wickedness, and you just welcome him in? Where’s the justice in this? He should be punished, disowned, thrown out, left to his own devices, cut off, told to take a long hike. Oh, yes! But instead, you give him gifts we can ill afford and make a great big fuss of him…’ I was completely overstating how I felt, but anger and frustration got the better of me.

Father tried to calm me down. I didn’t hear much of what he said, except that he kept going on about how Johnny was lost but now is found; he was dead but is alive, and how we should be glad.

Pah!

Deteriorating swill

viewpoint: pigs

Grunt, waffle, oink, snort.

Lousy food we get here. And the turnover of staff is a bit on the rapid side.

Look at this bloke we’ve got now! Skinny, broke, hungry, and no idea of how to look after porkers. I saw him being sly when he was pouring out the swill into our trough this morning. He got some on his hand and he tasted it. Wasn’t much impressed, I don’t think.

Oh, there he goes. Gone. Thanks a lot.

Waffle, snort, grunt, oink.

A temporary sugardaddy

VIEWPOINT: so-called friend

He called himself Jack, but I forgot to ask where he came from. But one day, he suddenly appeared out of nowhere, flashing the cash. I thought to myself ‘Charlie my boy, there’s someone worth latching on to.’ He was more than generous; on reflection, he was reckless. He seemed to be independently wealthy, with no visible means of income. But bundles of wonga kept falling from his wallet, and I had a healthy desire to make sure some of it came my way. He was generous with his greenbacks in the bookmakers and with chips in the casino. 

We had fabulous dinners and wild drinking binges; we were drunk most of the time! And the ladies were not backward in being forward, either; very friendly some of them turned out to be. Very. Oh yes, indeedy. And some of them were not all that lady-like.

Jack seemed surprised when suddenly there wasn’t anything else to spend. I slipped away that evening, when it started to be embarrassing. He was asking for credit, and making promises I knew he couldn’t keep. 

And then the famine struck, and I was in trouble. I had to leave the city, and eventually made my way to the borders, where I became a refugee, and had to beg. I was probably lucky to survive.

I never heard what happened to Jack. I hope he made it, but with an attitude like his, he was just asking to be taken for a ride. It would have taken something as dramatic as an act of God to save his bacon.

Gradually getting heavier

VIEWPOINT: calf

Cowshed life is, well, as it happens, stable. No surprises in the workalong heigh-ho day. I would just do my thing and eat all the food they gave me, mooch along, and lie down when it looks like rain. It cud not be more udderly tedious, to be a low-life like this – get it, the cattle are lowing?

Week after week passed and I just ate what I was given. I think I’d been putting on weight a bit (or was that just a lot of bull?) when suddenly, Jethro, the man who used to feed me each day, turned up one day at eleven. He usually came to feed me at midday, so what was this all about? Odd, that, I thought. ‘What’s he doing here, now?’

Then I noticed that he was walking and talking with the owner of the farm and his younger son, who’d been away.

Jethro whips a knife out of his pocket and before I could say to the boy ‘Welcome ho…’

I've been a spanner

VIEWPOINT: Son

At the time, it didn't seem all that unreasonable. I was bored with working on the farm and bored with being the youngest son. All the rotten jobs came my way, it seemed. So I asked dad to give me my share of the inheritance. I was a bit surprised when he gave it to me, but I quickly got ready and left, before he could change his mind.

I went to a foreign country, where the women were willing and the wine was heady. Friends gathered around, and helped me spend the cash. There was plenty of it, and we had a great time. I can’t sit here and pretend it was dull in any way. No, I had a great time. But eventually, the money ran out and so did the ‘friends’.

Disaster! The whole country was overtaken by famine, and suddenly I wasn’t just hard up – I was hungry and hopeless. I got a job working with filthy pigs, feeding them the rotting swill that wasn’t fit even for starving people to eat. But I was so low myself that I even considered eating these foul vegetables.

Right there in the sty, I had a revelation from God. I came to my senses, and realised that I could have been at home, a respected member of the family, with food on the table and love all around. Even dad’s hired men get a decent dinner each night, and here I was, starving to death! So I decided I should lay down my pride and go home. I planned my speech really carefully. ‘Father,’ I was going to say, ‘I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me one of your servants, if you’ll allow me back onto the property after the shameful way I’ve treated you.’

I made my way back to the old farm. I was still a long way off when, suddenly, there was dad, running at me for all he was worth! He grabbed me and kissed me. I started to give my speech, but he didn’t seem to want to hear it. He arranged for shoes and a coat, and he put the family ring on my finger. He called his servants and ordered that the calf be slaughtered and that a party should be organised.

We had a fine old time. Dad was so pleased to have me back. He’s been certain that I was dead and was thrilled to bits that I was alive and at home.

So glad to see him again!

father
 

My younger boy came to me and asked for his share of the inheritance. I didn’t want him to go, but I gave him his share. Off he went anyway. Every day I went to the roof whenever I could to see if he was returning.
 

Then we heard that famine was spreading, especially in the places where we feared he had gone. I still went to the roof each day, but I must admit I had convinced that he was dead; either killed for the money he was carrying in a famine-struck land, or starved.

I still went to the roof, and one day saw him on the road. My son! I ran to him and showered him with acceptance. He was trying to say something about ‘not worthy’ or something, but this was my son, whom I had almost given up for dead. I cannot imagine what could have inspired him to return; but I was deeply glad he had decided upon that course. 

I called the servants to bring a coat, shoes and a ring to signify that he was part of the family once again. I ordered that we should have a big slap-up feed, and so it was hot roast beef all round, with yorkshire puddings and flagons of wine.  

The noise from the party was colossal!