I met Eddie Porter and his wife Margaret a few years ago. Eddie is now fast approaching 80 years of age and his Lancashire born wife is a little younger than that. Eddie is a truly funny man to listen to, although most of the time he seems to be unaware how side-splitting comical his true stories actually are for the hearers He tells them in a droll, matter-of-fact Irish way and leaves you to visualise the hilarious goings on of himself and his ever tolerant wife Margaret.

Eddie was a farmer back in Omagh, Northern Ireland, until his father died, then the farm was left to an older brother. Eddie then came over to Lancashire in 1952 to seek his fortune. Well, he never made a fortune but he did eventually manage to buy a smallholding in the Fylde. He married Margaret in 1958 and he augmented his income with other work while he farmed his smallholding and raised a family of three boys.

Some of the animals he reared on his small farm were pigs. Pig-rearing was fine but the day always came when he had to take his young pigs to market to release some cash from his investment. Unfortunately Eddie could not afford a large vehicle to transport the pigs in to the market in Preston. So, with sound Irish logic, he put his young pigs in his small Ford Anglia car on one particular occasion, the only form of transport he possessed at the time. He set out that morning in his little car full of pigs – eleven in all. The car was not too clean but the pigs didn't mind. On the way to Preston market from Freckleton he had to stop quickly at the traffic lights near to a junction with Brook Street in Preston. Somehow the young pigs burst open the doors of the car at the moment of the emergency stop’ and, not too enamoured with Eddie’s driving, they quickly escaped - none the worse for the incident. Eddie was not the slightest bit phased by all this and simply proceeded to stop the traffic and steer his eleven pigs along the public highway to the livestock market. This had not been a regular sight in Preston for many decades and no doubt a few spectators were wondering if they were dreaming.

There was another incident concerning the transportation of a pig that Eddie speaks about. It occurred on a day in August 1971 when a serious crime had been carried out in nearby Blackpool, although Eddie did not know this at the time. Eddie was taking a full-grown sow to market in the back of a small van. He was crossing the traffic lights at the crossroads on the main Blackpool to Preston road near to the Roebuck Pub, when a Jaguar car had jumped the lights and drove like the wind away from Blackpool and across Eddie's path. (The Jaguar car, he later discovered, had two escaping criminals in it.) Well, if you suddenly stop a little van with a full grown pig behind you know what to expect. The pig was hurtled forward and landed on top of poor old Eddie in the driving seat. Eddie was almost suffocated and was pinned down by the pig. He just couldn't move and neither could the pig. The next minute police in cars arrived and stopped all the traffic and surrounded him. They were too late to catch the escaping criminals but for some reason decided to wait at the cross roads for developments.

Eddie honestly believed that he was about to be arrested and thrown into a police cell for committing some dreadful misdemeanour. He had never seen so many police in one place before. How would he explain this to Margaret he wondered? However, the police completely ignored Eddie and his pig who were now stuck in the middle of the road. Nobody spoke to him and they only gave the odd pair a passing glance. They clearly had more important matters to be concerned with. Strange really, because it must have looked like the pig had been driving the van, with Eddie squashed down almost out of sight under the creature in his driving seat. After something of a struggle Eddie freed himself and after waiting for some expected salutary words of warning from the police, which never came, he decided to go on his way to market.

Not all Eddie's stories concern pigs. He tells of a day when he set off very early one morning to take a cow to Preston Cattle Market, from Freckleton, in his newly acquired Landrover and trailer. The vehicle was not actually new and on the way the clutch broke rendering the transportation exercise somewhat impossible. A passing farmer with a cattle lorry stopped and offered to take the animal to Preston Market for £20. Eddie did not think much of the 'generous' offer and said so. So Eddie, being a resourceful Irishman, simply decided to walk the animal to market as he had sometimes done in his more youthful days in Ireland. He made a crude halter from some binding twine and off the pair went at the gentle pace of the cow. The walk was about six or seven miles in length and on the way he was the subject of much laughter from many other farmers who passed him as they took their livestock to market. Eventually he arrived at the market and to his great astonishment was clapped and cheered as he took his cow in. The whole place was looking out for the grand arrival of Eddie and his cow. But, Eddie got the last laugh. Some farmers thought that Eddie was such a sport that they bid fiercely against each other for his cow. The cow brought the highest price of the day for any heifer and Eddie was able to take home more money than he had ever received for a cow in his life before. And that was certainly a first for the hard-bitten Lancashire farmers who were happy to bid high prices on this occasion for a very ordinary cow.

Written by Keith Slater

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