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Wendy Best writes…

Wendy Best was a journalist on The Western Daily Press when she broke the story. This is her recollection of what transpired.

The story broke on a cold Monday morning in January 1998. Like all journalists I was making calls from the district office in Trowbridge where I was based for the Western Daily Press.

I spoke to Sergeant Roger Bull, then a PC divisional press officer for Wiltshire police based in Chippenham.

He told me how officers in Malmesbury had taken several calls over the weekend about sightings of some runaway pigs.

Apparently they had escaped from an abattoir the previous Thursday and the only way they could have reached the area where they were being seen was by swimming across a river.

I knew it was a good story. It was January, the weather was foul, it was after Christmas and people needed cheering up. Here was something funny - two pigs on the run, swimming a river to evade being slaughtered.

I contacted those who had reported the sighting who all thought it was hilarious too. It was a funny story which fitted the style of the Western Daily Press page three, which always aims to feature a light-hearted tale.

While it could and would be argued that pigs escaped from abattoirs all the time, what made this one different was the fact they had swum across the River Avon.

Not being a pig expert, I contacted a vet to find out just how unusual this was - the initial reaction to my query was total hilarity.

The story ran in the Western Daily Press on Tuesday 13 January complete with graphics created by an artist and a rhyming headline: 'Three little piggies went to market, but two went on the run, they saved their bacon with a swim in the Avon and now the farmer's looking glum...'

By Wednesday, it was in the Daily Mail and by nightfall the ITN helicopter was circling Malmesbury. At this point I managed to track down the owner of the pigs who gave me an exclusive interview which we ran on Thursday 15 January.

He pledged 'to save the bacon' of the runaway pigs.

Malmesbury was now full of satellite trucks blocking Tetbury Hill and the High Street. The pubs were packed with journalists, the hotels were fully booked with two helicopters flying over the town for three days.

The downside of the media invasion was residents found it difficult to get around. The upside was that many found long-lost friends and relatives suddenly calling them for the first time in years - after seeing Malmesbury on the TV wherever they were in the world.

After my exclusive interview with the pigs' owner, every journalist was after him. Little did they know that as they dreamt in their hotel beds of how they would corner him, he was sweeping the streets outside those very hotels at 4.30am every morning.

Thursday was spent chasing pigs around a back garden in Malmesbury - as the international media joined in the feeding frenzy.

On the Friday morning I was taken to a pig farm for an interview by News 24 and when I got to Malmesbury, the media pack was interviewing each other as we waited for news.

American and Japanese film crews were among them. The international media were fascinated by the British view on animals.

By Friday night the second pig was captured and after the Saturday headlines, a very surreal week had ended.

But in Malmesbury it lived on with the production of a 'Trotter Trail' taking visitors around the town as well as a glut of novelty items recording the pigs' dramatic flight to freedom.

In the years following I have regularly had calls about the Tamworth Two and find it quite amazing that this part of my life - although very much dramatised in this film - should now be recreated.

It is very strange after spending 17 years as a journalist that what was basically a ridiculous little story should gain such notoriety.