Ronstable – home of the cashew bap, birthplace of regional Slime Football Champion Henry Bean, and source of the world famous North Rutland Smell.
This rural idyll is considered the jewel at the heart of the core of Whimby county: a village known nationwide for its beautiful farmland, and internationally recognised as the badger cull hotspot of the northern hemisphere.
Of course, ask anyone round here what they know about Ronstable, and the sixth or seventh thing they’ll say after you give them a few hints will be “pigs”.
The Ronstable Pig Show has taken place on the village green on the 14th of June every year since 1732, interrupted only by V1 bombing in 1941, and once more in 1970 when those big swans turned up.
Once a year, the village lights up with the sounds of pigs, the smells of pigs, and the presence of pigs, all walking around the place. Farmers and breeders from around the country bring their flocks [Flocks? -ed.] to take part in the many showcases and competitions, at a celebration once referred to by Prime Minister Harold McMillan as “utterly, utterly tedious.”
However, this bristly and faintly muddy peace was shattered in 1998 when, due to a clerical error, the Ronstable chapter of the Hells Angels arrived for their biannual member’s meeting on the same day of the Pig Show, leading to a fight breaking out with the Women’s Institute while they were arranging their jams at around 10am. The bikers would later be exonerated in a subsequent court case, after photos emerged clearly showing Ms Maureen Stimmy stuffing a fruitcake into a sock and then beating a man to death with it.
During the brawl, local council staff continued to let visitors into the green, with tickets selling for only 20p each. That year’s event was hugely anticipated, as it had been announced that February that Wallace “The Biggy Piggy” would be attending after his Vegas tour.
Wallace was a champion truffle hog, notorious for his ability to drive a JCB during his truffle hunts, and most famous for excavating almost a metric ton of truffles in a single afternoon.
An hour after the gates opened, Wallace’s helicopter attempted to land in his custom LED pigpen, which had been dropped off and assembled by a fleet of trucks and roadies a week prior. Suddenly, disaster struck.
The rotors became entangled with a line of bunting made by a local county primary school, and within seconds the entire aircraft crashed into Les Dennis, long standing patron of the Ronstable Pig Show, killing him instantly and badly bruising his knee.
Wallace survived the crash, and fled into the North Rutland forest. He was extricated fourteen days later, but the intense shock had completely destroyed his sense of smell. He would never return to Whimby.
By now, the situation had reached breaking point. The field was massively over capacity, and tensions were running high. In the chaos and confusion, a visitor grabbed a Gloucestershire Old Spot, stuffed it under his jumper, and calmly made his way to the exit. In a separate incident, twelve other pigs were smuggled out simultaneously in what Scotland Yard would later label a “coordinated theft” by some “horrid bumholes”. Only four pigs were ever recovered, found jammed in a bin outside of Londis.
We now believe that The Whimby Pig Incident was a coordinated theft, perpetrated by some horrid bumholes.
DI Blem, Scotland Yard
A fight broke out by midday, and by lunchtime riot police finally made it to the scene, firing tear gas and bean bags into the crowd in a desperate attempt to break up the fighting. When the dust cleared, twelve hours later, only three of the initial two hundred pigs in attendance were left in the village green.
The previous year’s champion, Oinky Oinky Oinky Oinky Woo Woo, was found cowering under a refreshment stand. Runner-up Ronnie Redmane had been crushed underfoot by the crowds, and was now a pig shaped disk, 1 inch (25mm) thick. He survived the ordeal, but never emotionally recovered.
Lessons were learned, and by next year the Pig Show would be back to normal, with the 1999 event featuring no helicopter crashes or pig thefts, and only three fatalities. The gang here at The Files look forward to seeing everyone at the upcoming 2022 Ronstable Pig Show, where editors Grouse Henderson and Ditton Hague will be running a coconut shy and cat delousing dip, respectively.
