NONE of us had ever tried to roast a whole pig before, but we had a fire, a spit and a 20kg porker, so we put the three of them together at ten in the morning, and hoped to have dinner at seven.
Pig-watching was a more arduous task than we had expected. The animal had to be turned every 10 minutes and it took another five to balance the spit properly each time. Carl was on first watch.
He turned the thing a few times and then disappeared to the vacant ground next door, returning with three small boys who were prepared to do the job all day for 50 cents each and some food. Fifty cents could buy something in 1973!
The waste ground next to our house was a source of great amusement to us. It was being used as an illegal shebeen and the amount of liquor which was delivered there on a Saturday morning had to be seen to be believed.
The customers were a noisy lot, but honest and we really didn’t object to them at all, especially after they caught someone stealing meat from our kitchen and returned all our chops to us.
The police came round every now and again to check on them and only two of them had permits to be in the area. The rest had been carted off to jail so often that they had taken to posting guards at the corner to watch for cop cars.
I was at that side of the house one day when, for no apparent reason, 50 people suddenly disappeared over the wall, into the hedge or behind the buildings. Thirty seconds later the police arrived from both directions and found two men playing cards on an up-turned tea chest.
They looked everywhere. One of them even went so far as to stick his head in a cement mixer. They could find nothing illegal, so they went away again. Less than a minute later, the beer was flowing as if nothing had happened.
Carl had figured that, as today was Saturday, the shebeen could probably provide us with casual labour. He sat back with a beer and directed operations.
The first guest to arrive was Pete. We allowed him one beer, before informing his that his professional services were required. Some idiot had dropped a glass into the swimming pool a couple of days before and we were not sure if we had managed to get all the bits out. Would he mind going down and having a look?
From the boot of his car appeared masks, flippers and even an aqualung. By this time more guests had arrived, so, having cleared the pool of glass, Pete amused himself, and everyone else, by giving scuba diving lessons until the air in the bottles ran out.
The pig was giving us problems, as it was longer than the fire and its extremities didn’t seem to be cooking at all.
So we cut the head off, and moved the rest of it along the spit. The head, we boiled. I don’t know what plans Maggie had had for the head, but somebody gave it to the dog. He must have thought it was Christmas. He ate far too much, slept for an hour and then disappeared into the bushes. I don’t think he felt very well.
By three o’clock we had our full complement of guests and the pig was just beginning to smell like dinner.
There was a South Africa versus Australia Monopoly International going on in the lounge, while Rhodesia had challenged England to a darts match in the bar.
In the dining room a jigsaw puzzle marathon was nearing its close, for which I was very grateful. We had started that jigsaw seven weeks earlier and I was getting heartily sick of it.
By seven the pig looked done, so we hoisted it off the spit and laid it on a wire-topped table, with a tray underneath to catch the gravy.
“Right,” said Maggie, handing Geoff the carving knife. “Over to you.”
“Not on your life,” said Geoff, passing the knife on to me. “It’s Sue’s pig.”
In the end, Geoff and Mike took a knife each and started at opposite ends of the beast, while Maggie and I hopped around in the middle, offering advice.
It would not have passed for ‘carving’ at the Hilton, but in a very short time the pig was dismantled and the only sound to be heard was the munching of the starving hoards, punctuated by the occasional ‘crack’ which marked the opening of yet another can of beer.
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