The Flying Pig of Whitmoor House!
Sometimes, when people say something that they don’t believe will happen- they say “and when pigs fly!” For some reason they don’t think pigs can fly!
And yet….
Captain Salvin lived at Whitmoor House, near Woking. He had fought in the wars, and when he came home all he wanted peace and quiet. He was very interested in hawking and fishing, and became very famous. But he was very good with animals, and even had two otters that he had from babies. They followed him everywhere, and even sat in his lap- just like a cat.
But he had one special pet. It was a wild pig called Lady Susan. A Maharajah had given it to him as a present, but soon afterwards the piglet had fallen sick, and Captain Salvin had looked after it until it was better. That pig loved Captain Salvin, and thought she was a dog. He gave her a collar and a bell and every where Captain Salvin went, Lady Susan went with him, trotting on behind. If they were walking in the fields- he had to be careful that she didn’t squash the crops- she grew so big.
When strangers saw them walking together, they would stand and stare and their mouths would fall open, so that they had to be careful they didn’t swallow a fly.
Then Captain Salvin decided to train Lady Susan. On their walks, if they came across a log, he would get her to jump over it. She couldn’t do it at first, so he would run and jump over it himself, and then run with her. When she did it he gave her an apple for a treat. Then he trained her to jump over the streams. The first time he tried to get her to do it- she just walked into the stream and followed him across. So he went back, and did it again and again until she got the idea. Then she had many apples.
She got very good at jumping higher and higher over logs, and further and further across the streams. Soon Captain Salvin and Lady Susan could be seen running through the woods and Lady Susan almost flying through the air over tree stumps and across streams.
One day, Captain Salvin decided to show off Lady Susan to his friends. He asked a blacksmith to “come and ring a pig”. In the old days they would put a ring through a pig’s nose to stop it digging in the ground. The blacksmith came along, and went into the pigsty to find the pig. Captain Salvin and his friends hid to see what would happen.
When Lady Susan saw the blacksmith, she started to run towards him, and just as a dog does, she tried to jump up at him to say hello. The blacksmith was so surprised, that he turned round, and tried to get out of the pigsty. Lady Susan chased him all around the pigsty. The blacksmith began to get a bit scared of this pig, and tried to get out the fastest way he knew how. He climbed over the wall of the pigsty. Now that wall was about four feet high, and the blacksmith stood back- relieved that he had got away from this very strange pig.
But Lady Susan hadn’t finished with him. As the blacksmith stood there, wiping the sweat off his face, he could hear a “rum ti tum, rum ti tum” and all of a sudden, there was Lady Susan flying over the wall of the pigsty!
Captain Salvin and his friends were laughing and laughing! The poor blacksmith didn’t know what to do, and Lady Susan was running backwards and forwards between the blacksmith and Captain Salvin. The captain paid the blacksmith some money, and he and his friends went to celebrate.
But after that day- the blacksmith had a good story of how he truly did see a pig fly!