Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 133 - The Darleigh Spring Fayre

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

It's MaxFunDrive! To support the show, go to maximumfun.org/join Mike Shephard, Freya Parker, Mike Wozniak, Sammy Dobson and Linnea Sage join in this week as we learn all about the Darleigh Spring Fayre, which this year celebrated its 600th anniversary. Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com Music credit courtesy of epidemicsound.com:   It's All About Us / Jaslyn Edgar Ethos / Jakob Ahlborn Memories Of Paris / Trabant 33 Rule Britannia / Sight Of Wonders Rule Britannia / National Anthem Worx Pastoral Op. 21 / Ludwig Van Beethoven Heaven And Above / Claude Signet Continuum / Hampus Naeselius Mouvement ii, Noir et Blanc / Franz Gordon Slow, Like An Aching / Jay Taylor     Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/joinbeef 

Hello there, it is Max Fun Drive, where shows on the maximum fun network, including this one, Beef and Dairy Network, ask our listeners for their support. I'm going to talk to you a bit more about it in the middle of this show, but the main message is that this show exists because people like you support it, and it simply wouldn't happen were it not for you, with your support at $5 a month or more. And to those of you who already do that, a big thank you, may pig milk rain down upon ye in both this life and the next. I'd love it if you could help out. To do so, go to maximum fund.org forward slash join. That's maximum fund.org forward slash join. Okay, I hope you enjoy this episode. I enjoyed making it. The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is brought to you by the crossed horns online sale at Mitchell's Agricultural Supplies. If it's not Mitchells, get back in the truck.

Just look for those crossed horns on our website to find over 50% off across our range. brined animal feed, 50% off. The deep heat, pre-milking, utter warming probe, 50% off. Our famous tactical pneumatic encouragement tusk. All of these are 50% off. All heavy-duty birthing mats, 50% off. Our winds of change, extra strength parasite removal broth, 50% off. And the scent of a bull, pheromone-soaked insemination gauntlet, now 50% off. It's all waiting for you at www.mitchells.kentucky.org.org.com. Hello and welcome to the Beef and Dairy Network podcast. The number one podcast for those involved, or just interested, in the production of beef animals and dairy herds.

The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is the podcast companion to the Beef and Dairy Network website, as well as the printed magazine, brought to you by the crossed horns sale over, at Mitchells. They've just confirmed yet another extension to the sale, and so it's worth getting over there, just this week I bought a huge rubber Erzatz cow vagina as a wedding present at 50% off. Now, it probably won't have escaped your attention that last month saw the 600th anniversary of the Dali Spring Fair. The fair began in 1426, in the middle of the Hundred Years' War between England and France, to celebrate an incident in which a Frenchman walked into the village of Dali and was torn apart by three patriotic pigs.

Dali, in the northwest of England, is still famous for its pigs, and so maybe isn't an obvious fit for us. But you know what? By God, it isn't lamb. And to have not missed a year in 600 years, despite COVID regulations, is a true achievement. And so the Beef and Dairy Network reached out and sponsored the ice cream van at the fair. That's right, free ice cream for everyone at the event with, I think, a reasonable stipulation that it was one free ice cream per attendee. And we are taking seriously accusations that one man kept going back and back again wearing different hats and ate over 35 ice creams until he bathed hard into a postbox. We are in touch with the police and intend to assist them to prosecute this charlatan

to the full extent of the law. So this month, in recognition of 600 glorious years, we learn a bit more. about the Dali Spring Fair. Hello, I'm Professor James Harkham, currently untenured, academically speaking, but very much available and in the market, if you need a piano moving for 40 to 70 quid. I spoke to Professor Harkham, hoping that he could fill in some historical context for the instant where the Frenchman was torn apart by pigs.

I started by asking him whether it would have been unusual to see a Frenchman in England at that time. Certainly in rural communities, the concept of what a French person was would not have been familiar to your average English working peasant. Depictions that we see in wood carvings or church wall paintings often suggest that the vernacular English artists imagined that a French person looked something like a penguin. They grasp of how other cultures functioned was really quite rudimentary. These people were rural folk, children of the soil, and absolute idiots. That's so interesting because I now think, of course, to the rhymes that we learn when we're kids about the French are coming. And, of course, they often reference the beak, the Frenchman's beak.

Grab him by the beak, is the thing that the children chant, grab him by the beak. Yes. So does that come from this, this. misunderstanding that the French were kind of more akin to, as you say, a penguin or a puffin or a seabird of some sort rather than a human? Yes. Again, I think the nerves of English soldiers, English Longbourmen, who probably never left their villages, and then they would be waiting in the ships, the cliffs of Dover, waiting to cross to France, and they would see a puffin, a sea bird, something with a colourful beak, and imagine that that was a French person attacking them. Also, in terms of, it made them seem less human.

And obviously it did dehumanize the French people to a certain extent. And also when they saw in Brittany and Normandy, the habit of French people to eat raw fish that was being thrown to them from a bucket, they understood that to make them basically kindred with seals, sea lions and birds. Childa, cock thine ear and hold thine mouth. I tell of dangers from the south. The Frankish tide comes rushing on, and should thou ever come upon,

steal thyself and be not meek, and grab that Frenchman by the beak. The Frenchman nests in salty sedge, upon the white cliff's crumbling edge. A pale and speckled egg they lay, go forth and snatch the prize away. And should the Frenchman dare to speak, grab that Frenchman by the beak?

If from his nest the gall should rise, with fury in his yellow eyes, to flap his wings and hop and shriek, yield not a single pace, but seek to fall upon this salt-tate bleak, and grab that Frenchman by the beak. Now hide thee home with prize in hand Across the mud and shifting sand

If through the shell a piping squeak Should signal birth of Frenchman weak A four-feather sprout upon his cheek Grab that Frenchman by the beak Hello, my name is Tabby Pondlicker And I am the raffle manager Of the Dali Spring Fair Hello Tabby, thank you for talking with me today

First of all, congratulations on the 600th anniversary of the Dali Spring Fair. That must have been an incredible event. Can I just say, sorry, just before we get into it, I just want to say a huge thank you to the Beef and Dairy Network for their sponsorship of the ice cream van. It was such a hit on the day. I'm so glad to hear it went down well. It was just amazing. You know, I personally, I've never tried beef-flavored ice cream, but I am a convert. I am a convert for sure.

there might be some pig-flavored ones there next year, definitely. Well, I think the way we thought of it was, we knew the Daly Spring Fair was coming up. It's obviously a big thing. We've got a link with you guys because your official vet is also a friend of the show, Bob Triscothic. Yeah. And I think we just thought, you know, it's not a beef event principally, but we'd like to just, you know, it's a hand across the water, isn't it, to our more pig-focused friends? We're all in the same business at the end of the day. Yeah, it's, you know, it's meats, meats on meats, isn't it?

You know, we're all, you know, different animals, but goes in the same place, doesn't it? One of the things that you won't have realised, maybe because we didn't necessarily advertise this, was that a lot of the beef ice cream was actually made with pig milk. Wow. Just to kind of, for the symbolism. It does tie in. That is so nice, actually. You know, there was a sort of familiar flavour there, so maybe that's what that was.

Yeah, there's a kind of claginess, the kind of clagginess that you get with the pig milk that you don't get with normal dairy. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because I know, I mean, I only drink pig milk. I think most people in Dali only drink pig milk. So, yeah, funny, well, that is another reason why it did go down an absolute storm. Well, I'm glad it was a hit. Absolutely.

And everything else with the event went well? The whole thing has just been overwhelming. It really has. Very, very proud. Yeah, just, yeah, fantastic. Your pride is, you know, very obvious to me. What do you make of the perception of Dali from outside? the area.

I think most people still associate it very strongly with that very violent act that happened 600 years ago. Is that something that you think about, what you worry about? Things are so PC now, aren't they?

And, you know, obviously, you know, the pigs would never be used in that way now. You know, most families in the area do still keep a pig, which people are often very surprised by, I've got three myself. But I think, you know,

it's, we're a friendly place and I think if you do feel scared, I would say that's probably more on you. I mean, the pigs are out, you know, we have the green, the pigs are still medieval laws, they are still allowed to frolic there. So, you know, if you are French and you are feeling

a bit scared, I think that's probably, that's probably that's on you, that's not on us. Well, okay, if your three pigs were faced with a Frenchman, you know, very obviously French, onions around the neck, stripy t-shirt, beret, a knapsack full of soft cheeses

and erotic cartoons. What would be the reaction of your pigs upon seeing that? They say elephants never forget, but there is also another saying that is pigs always remember and there is a kind of generational memory, I would say, with pigs. So I don't,

my pigs have never actually been exposed to a Frenchman. Honestly, I don't know. If they did go for them, I'd obviously, you know, do my best to protect that individual, but, you know. Because I assume that many of the pigs in Dali, I'm not sure if this is the case of yours, are probably direct descendants of those original pigs that tore apart the Frenchmen. Yeah, so, yeah, all the pigs, every single one of the matchy, they are all descended from the original pigs, which is something that, you know, we're incredibly proud of.

And I know the breeders have worked very, very hard to really, you know, keep it in the family. Obviously, you know, that does lead to problems. We've got a lot of rage issues or got quite a few extra trotters here and there. Right. I know my Harry's actually got five tails, but, you know, that kind of makes him what he is. So, you know, we embrace what having such a narrow gene pool, what that has done for us that actually only makes the tapestry richer for us. And I believe I'm right in saying, I mean, obviously this is, everyone knows, this is what Dali is famous for.

You have a pig mare. We do have a pig mare. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Roger. Very popular. So, elder state's pig now. Yeah. And he's got a little robe. Obviously got the mayor's chain.

And he's just allowed to wander at Will. So, you know, sometimes you think, oh, someone, you know, broken into my house. You go downstairs, it's Roger. And you obviously give him a little treat because he has the mayor pig. And obviously, you know, he's got free reign. and which, you know, gives him a lot of confidence. But one thing it does actually give him, one of the, it's quite a huge perk for him,

is that he's, he is the only pig. Out of all the pigs that we've got, who is not allowed to be milked. And that is kind of writ in, you know, ancient, you know, it's on a scroll in the town hall, you know, they shall not milk, they may a pig. And that, you know, we really, obviously honour that. And I think it gives him a lot of,

a lot of freedom, a lot of confidence, yeah. I asked Professor Harkham if we know anything about the identity of that Frenchman who was torn apart by pigs. The difficulty with identifying our Frenchman is, of course, that he will have contributed very little to the archaeological record, having been consumed entirely by the pigs. He is now simply a series of explosive pig excretions, probably buried somewhere in the soil record beneath the recreation ground in Dali. there is a chance, of course, that the buckles on his shoes, or as a Frenchman, probably the little bells on the end of his shoes may have popped through the system undisturbed. But I think the metal detectorists have been out there for, you know, 50 years or more now. And there's been nothing. I mean, if there was something that proved that any of the remains were.

definitively French, perhaps some tokens from a brothel, then maybe we would have closure on this matter. But I think the story is, the story holds true and I think it's been repeated enough in the folk record that we can believe that there's definitely a core of truth to it. Hello, my name is Bob Truscothic and I am the resident vet for the Dali Spursketh. Spring Fair. Bob, always great to talk to you. How is it here? Lovely. Thank you. Yes. It's always an absolute delight to be up in this beautiful part of God's country. Despite not being local to the area, Bob was attracted to the event by the extraordinary actions of those pigs 600 years ago. But how did the pigs know that the man was indeed a Frenchman? It's a spectacular example of animal patriotism, isn't it?

And it's been long discussed. Obviously, there are some who believe that they had detected soft cheeses in his knapsack. In the 15th century, in that part of the northwest of England, they will have heard stories of soft cheeses. Some would have assumed that this was just scaremongering on the part of the paper scene in some way, and that such a thing couldn't be possible and wasn't technically in any way shape of form a cheese. Professor Harkham was able to affirm that at that time, most cheeses in England were hard. The cheeses tended to be harder, certainly. This was part of the siege mentality of the Hundred Years' War.

The fear of French invasion was such that the cheeses were built hard so that they could be used in war. Again, the French battle cheeses were notoriously soft. A French cheese could not penetrate plate armour or even chain mail, whereas a Cheshire cheese, the most prevalent cheese in England at that time, fixed that to a catapult, You're taking a castle down. It is said the tearing apart of the Frenchman was witnessed by a young stable boy, recorded as being called Bondonia Bert.

Bondonia Bert ran home to his parents, Agnius and Boflstan, and told them what he'd seen. Soon the whole village knew about this extraordinary occurrence, and the village elder at that time, Gilbert Miller, decided that it should be celebrated with what would be the first ever Dali Spring Fair, and at the centre of that fair would be a re-enactment.

The reenactment was, I think, a great act of folk memory, something that they were establishing their loyalty to the crown and to the king. And for that reason, they petitioned King Henry VI and asked for a fresh Frenchman to be delivered to the town. And they duly obliged. Do we know anything about the identity of the Frenchman who was used in that first reenactment? Yes, it's an interesting character. Guillaume Destang was born in Flanders, raised in Burgundy, dipped in champagne. He lived a life of a pirate, a spy, a cloth merchant. And eventually, he found himself in the employ of the constable of France.

He was known as a wit, a bon vivor. He upset a lot of people. So when he was captured in the aftermath of the Battle of St. James and held prison, in the Tower of London. The joke began to wear a little thin, I think. He was known as something of a Jacques, the lad. He liked to play practical jokes. Again, something that was not appreciated in the Tower of London.

And I think the Dali Fair really gave Henry VIth an opportunity to get rid of a once, perhaps honoured guest, although he was a prisoner of war. He had become slightly irritating. Is it in much the same way that, for example, we now read the quotes of Oscar Wilde and think, oh, what a clever and funny man. But if you'd actually had to spend any time with him,

he would have been an absolutely terrible company. Oh, unbearable. Yes, absolutely unbearable. The reenactment at the heart of the fair was going to be a true reenactment insofar as the Frenchman was going to die. And the method of his death was that he was going to be torn apart

by pigs. In recognition of this grizzly end, when he arrived in Dali, he was given a three-day stay of execution, during which time he was able to visit the alehouses, carouse with the women, and eat spiced boiled onions. This is the famous northern hospitality. You'll be given a slap on the back, a hearty pint, a pie, and then you'll be torn apart by pigs. It's, you know, it's that homely, old-fashioned.

and no-nonsense attitude that we've come to love about the good old English north country really. And I think we have to remember that Guillaume had, you know, this charm, this wit that everybody found seemed to last about three days. Then it ran out. He was a perfect dinner party guest, but then somehow he would still be in your house the next day.

And then the day after that. Yeah, he's a classic kind of quite good fun on the first day of a stag do. But by the time you're all going back to Barcelona Airport to go back to Luton on the Monday, people are hoping that he's lost his passport. That's right, yes. This is someone who's still proposing doing shots on the bus back to the airport. By the late 18th century, things have begun to change. This is, of course, the age of enlightenment.

This is an era where people really took ethics very seriously. So the question does arise? Is it right to have a Frenchman publicly torn apart by pigs? for the entertainment of a rural community. On top of ethical concerns, there were also logistical problems. The reenactment was becoming more and more extreme, with more and more pigs from the local area being sent to Dali to take part. It is thought that by the mid-1700s, over a thousand pigs would try to eat the Frenchmen.

I mean, the whole of the north of England was contributing pigs, cities, towns. There is a report of a bacon famine in Bradford. that was caused by the fact that all the pigs had been sent to the fair. Something had to change. The traditional English breakfast was at stake. People were eating slices of goose bacon with partridge sausage. These are things that were fundamentally un-English. Something that was meant to affirm Englishness is suddenly a detriment to the culture.

So yes, there had to be at least a reduction of the number of pigs. or, as it turned out, a switch to more sustainable, more reliable. So the decision is made that it will be more humane, perhaps more ethical, to switch from seeing a man torn apart by pigs to offering a more gentle and perhaps more sustained and less bloody spectacle, seeing him buffeted to death by cattle. And the idea of being buffeted to death by a handful of cattle is quite relaxing one, isn't it? quite attractive idea.

Yes, it will have, I have no experience of it myself, but I can imagine only that it would be like sliding into a nice warm bath. And then, of course, in the modern day, we no longer murder a Frenchman. When did that change? When did that stop happening? From the end of the 18th century, we've seen campaigners, letter writers, busy bodies, saying, is it right in this day and age that we are still publicly, murdering somebody slowly buffeted into the grave for no other reason other than the fact that they are French.

Of course, we're not at war with France. Relations between Britain and France improve. The last Frenchman to be torn apart by pigs as part of the official programme of the Dali Spring Fair met his fate in 1991. He was an arsonist from Leal. So the centrepiece of the spring fair, we know traditionally, you know, going back all those 600 years, what they would do is they would reenact the moment where that Frenchman was torn apart by pigs with a real Frenchman and real pigs and they would just do it again. Obviously, that's the kind of thing we can't do these days. I would imagine there's not, you know, there aren't many people calling for that to come back in the village. Well, you would be surprised. I think some of the older residents don't see a problem with it.

In fact, my mother-in-law actually did say to me, you know, she said, look, find a fellow who's tired of life. Right. And then you're doing him a favour, you know, you get the notoriety, you get it taking care of yourself. There's no mess. Yeah, no mess, no fuss.

Obviously, pigs eat the whole thing. You know, glasses and shoes. But obviously, you know, even though, you know, now we're not in Europe anymore, so I'm sure there's, you know, there's a lot less red tape around that kind of thing. But no, we have sort of, I think personally the paperwork for that would be,

very, very tricky now. So, yeah, so we're not looking to bring it back. I mean, we did have a theatre company do it with somebody dressed in French garb, and then children being the pigs. Okay, that's nice. Which was very, very sweet, actually. And we probably did that, I would say twice.

Yeah. But then the second year, and I do not know how it happened, still to this day, somehow the children got replaced with real pigs. And I don't... To this day, I don't know. To this day, I don't know or understand.

But, yeah, there were some sort of life-changing injuries there for that actor. But, you know, living and learning every day. That's Dali. The incident with the theatre company was captured by Tabby with her mobile phone. Of course, now we no longer have the system where a Frenchman is... brought to the town and torn apart by pigs. No, exactly. What was Brexit for, I ask you?

Oh, you'd be in favour of bringing it back? Well, it's just, you have a bucket list of things that you wish to see in your lifetime, and sometimes you think you might actually tick some of the more unlikely ones, and then the dream disappears in your fingertips, doesn't it? So you're at the event, you're the in-house vet. Yes. Because there are still, despite what we've talked about, there are still animal events that take place.

They're not tearing apart people from mainland Europe, but they are there to represent patriotism and a respect for the crown. So maybe you can tell us about that. Well, that's wonderful. It's a key part of the event, a parade of patriotic royalist animals. I've been looking at the photographs, pretty exciting stuff. Someone seems to have tattooed a Union Jack on the back of a pig.

Yes, I'm not just any pig. A stolen pig, a stolen French pig. Oh, really? Yes. That was the Colthorpe family. So every year they go on a family holiday to France They drive all the way down They get the ferry

They seize a trophy And back they come There's a guy in the photograph holding up What looks like a It's either a wet snake or some kind of eel It's an adder Yes It's a it's a defanged adder

It was very wet though It's a wet adder Yes They keep the defanged out Very wet here And that is the belief That if it dries out Too much

That it will turn into a French sausage in your capacity as a vet then was there any work required of a veterinary nature during this year's spring fair? We got a guy I don't know it's up to you if you want to believe his name

out Jeremy Baxter's his name he was tossing tortoises about this year he's done it before he'll do it again any animal you can fit in the hand if you can get enough of them and he'll chuck them about

it was stoats a couple of years ago is he juggling or is it no he's just chucking them he's got a well he calls it a roof terrace. It's not. It's just his house. He's got a flat roof. And he bases himself up there and he chucks as many off as he can until people break in and subdue him. And is that an official part of the Dali Spring Fair?

Was that more of like a fringe event? He's trying to make it a part of the official. And he would say that way back in the day, the locals, you know, on day one that people were picking up pieces of Frenchmen and tossing them about. Right. But how that equates to a tortoise. or a guinea pig. Yeah, it makes no sense to me. It makes no sense to anyone locally.

He's a troublemaker. Sure, and were you able to attend to those animals that had that traumatic experience of being thrown from a flat roof? Thank God it's tortoises, really, because sometimes they do get chucked back at him and then he chucks them back again. And there's actually a group of local volunteers

who, most of the year, they actually spend the time singing sort of anti-Spanish ballads but they take one day off a year for the spring fair and they catch the tortoises or gerbils or whatever it may be in nets and I'll give them a hand doing a bit of first aid and then we set them free. Is that the right thing to do

to set them free into the British countryside? Like a tortoise? I'm not always sure if we should set them free but that's what we have been doing and it has altered over the years, it has altered the fauna locally, I would say the ecosystem has changed. A preponderance of tortoises?

Yes, that we have had a problem prominence of tortoises, that's difficult because the tortoises don't have a natural predator in this area. And local hunters are, I mean, everyone loves a tortoise. They're not going to get involved in a tortoise cull, no way. So technically, my understanding is the best thing you could do would be to introduce wild pygmy hippos or manatees into our waterways. and I think the knock on effects so that would be catastrophic. Tabby, I heard you

had a special guest at this year's event. We did try and get the king. Well, that was the thing, because everyone was saying, surely the king's going to tell him. Yeah, well, you know, up until the last minute, so did we.

But that, you know, he's very busy and, you know, obviously there's lots of, there's lots of fares, so he's got to pick and choose, I assume. But in the end,

we did have a royal making appearance, which was a huge honour. Camilla Parker Bowles, so the Queen's, yeah, cousins, her son, Keith was there. So what a lovely guy. Is he strictly speaking a member of the royal family? Technically he is, yeah. He's part of her family and she is a royal.

So, you know, he's not in the line of succession. He's not in the line of succession, no, right? No. How many people would have to die before Keith became king? Do you know? I think all of them, basically. Keith is a good chap, and he's willing, and bless him. I think he's trying to climb the royal ladder.

He promised that he was going to bring, well, what he claimed was that one of the king's sausagey fingers had fallen off, and he was going to bring that. And it was a charizo in the end. It was very obviously a tritzo. But they're so nice to him around here, so they just put it in the village. Museum. Was the idea that he would feed the king's sausage finger to one of the animals?

I think that was the hope. It would be a representation of the original event. But, you know, it's a touch of royal flavouring. A soussaint. And we enjoy that. It was funny, actually.

You know, I trusted the process. I know who he was, but there was some quite, I would say, malicious rumours that he wasn't who he said he was and, you know, somebody had seen him working in a wagammer's. And do you know what? There's a few villages and towns that border us that hate the fare, because their own fare has not been going for 600 years.

So let's just say that any voices of dissent did not come from Dali. That's all I'm going to say. Yes, he just appeared and he was on his own. You don't normally see middle-aged men on their own coming to this event unless they have a clear function. such as myself, but I have a tabard. No tabard, just saying I'm Keith and explained his relation to Queen Camilla and so on. And I think people are just so excited that it might be real, that they wanted to be real, so no one's done any background checks, and we've given him the benefit. Because there's rumours on there, so he was seen supposedly working in a Wagamama's,

also serving breakfast at a Premier Inn? Yes, that's right. That's right. He, he, Either he or the spitting image of him was seen in Kendall, I believe, or it's a road, it's not in Kendall, it's on the motorway, on the M6 and towards Kendall. Pretty decent Premier Inn, though, to be fair. Well, let's talk about your job at the Spring Fair. This is something that I think you've been doing for a number of years, which is running the raffle, obviously very important at any fair. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, I'm the raffle manager, that's me.

Maybe you could tell us some of the prizes that were on offer. Oh my gosh, yeah, I've absolutely loved to. So these are donated prizes, prizes that, you know, I've kind of sourced and bought with fundraising. So obviously a few kind of classics that everybody's going to like, you know, plastic funnel, you know. A plastic funnel? Yeah, you know, just, you know, so useful. I'm picking up my funnel 50 times a day, you know. But often, you know, it gets cracked.

You think, oh, whatever, you're not going to buy a new one. So anyway, that's always a good one. We've got a fuchsia bath mat. Oh, lovely. You know, just a great colour. Plastic comb. Oh, lovely. This was great.

A box of eight AAA batteries. Very useful. Yeah, the size you can never find, but you always need. So that was, yeah, people are excited about that one. Ball of grey twine. Masking tape. Large bottle of malt vinegar. That felt like a real win, that one.

You know, when people buy the raffle ticket, obviously you don't know what price you're going to get or if you're going to get any prize, but people do root for certain prizes. Oh, for sure. And I tell you, one, people will go in absolutely crackers over. It's a knitted Dennis Thatcher. And he, there's so much detail on the face and the clothing, little shoes. Really lovely. Excellent, excellent work, local artist. Oh, beige rubber doorstop.

that was actually because obviously it's such a neutral and often you do have to have the door open Well it's such a it's such a an adaptable colour beige

isn't it? Oh yeah It really goes in any colour scheme Absolutely yeah You know you can make it pop You can make it blend That's why I love beige Any other prizes worth mentioning

Now we were getting into the These are the sort of bigger Dennis as well We're getting into sort of of the higher More high end stuff So we had Absolutely sensational

This was a ceramic thimble commemorating the wedding of Prince Edward. Right, wow. So elegant. Just a beautiful piece. Just really lovely, so delicate. Oh, this was a big one. So we actually had a tea towel commemorating the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Wow.

Which felt like a real, that felt like a real coup, that one, getting that. Yeah, all the way from Glasgow. Yeah, all the way. Unused? Unused, pristine. Right. Yeah. And what, you know,

what I personally love about the Commonwealth Games is you never competing with anybody from France. Me personally, you know, sorry if that's not okay to say, but just trying to be honest here, you know, just trying to be authentic. That's what people like these days, isn't it? My authentic self, so. No need to second-guess things here.

Oh, thank you so much. Okay, back to the show soon. I'm just going to have a quick word with you about Max Fun Drive. Maximum Fun is a brilliant podcast. Network that this podcast has been with now for nine years or something like that. I just think they're brilliant. I love the ethos. They are a worker-owned co-op and they're not evil. And the way it works is that these shows are funded by their listeners. If you listen to a number of MaxFund shows, you can support them all or if you just listen to Beef and Dairy Network and just want to

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aren't in a position to do so. And of course, that is absolutely fine. I just want to say, thank you for listening. It means so much that you listen to the nonsense that I put out every month. I kind of can't believe that I still get to do this. So thank you very much. So that's maximum fun.org slash join. That's maximum fun.org slash join. Thank you. Back to this very, very important documentary. The day itself, I mean, wow, you know, a bit of drizzle in the morning, then the sun was just out, you know, incredible day. Everything going to plan. You know, the pigs just look great. Everyone's having a fantastic time. And then it gets to the raffle.

The raffle has been an important part of British culture for a long time. It embodies core British values of arbitrarily giving objects of value to people who don't deserve them. And then it's about four o'clock, I would say, classic raffle time. And 501 to 505 is pulled out. The raffled there, the ticket. Yeah. Who was pulling the raffle? Was that you?

Or was Keith doing that? It was Keith. Yeah, that was Keith. Really good, yeah, really good. A couple of, it had to be prompted a couple of times to, you know, I think he was just excited looking around. But yeah, so he calls it out. And this is unprecedented silence after the numbers.

Because what this person had won, they'd won the Epsom salts with the accompanying exfoliating mitt. Right. Big, big prize, you know, big, big prize. So just to paint the picture, normally, you know, Keith pulls the number out of the thing, reads it out, and then what, someone just starts going crazy in the crowd? Yeah. Yeah. Someone stands up, you know, get swearing, you know, oh my effing, whatever. And I can't effing believe this is effing happening to me.

All you other C's thought this would never effing happen to me. Effing, I mean, effing, you know, normal stuff, normal stuff. But it's a big. It's a big. It's high spirits, isn't it? It's high spirits, it's a big moment. And, you know, call out the... Keith calls the number.

Everyone's like, uh, nothing. And, yeah, it just kind of left a real, um... Yeah, just lack of closure, really. It was, it was sort of staggering, really, that somebody would buy... Why would you buy a ticket and then not wait for the draw? I just, um... Yeah, I don't know. We must appreciate how sacred...

and important this was to these people. Every prize at a raffle was seen as a gift directly from God, akin to His Son Christ Jesus being sent to earth. These people believed that if a raffle had been interfered with or had not been completed in the right and ecumenically correct way, then you would bring bad luck on your town for a hundred years. There were towns like Dunnitch, in East Anglia that was swept into the sea,

Winchell Sea in Sussex, again suffered a similar fate, blown into the waves, and each of those incidents can be traced to an incomplete raffle or what was known at the time as Satan's tombola. Well, I find myself initially wondering

that something awful has happened, because otherwise why would they not be claiming their number? Or is it a person who, for some reason, is temporarily or permanently incapacitated and unable to hear the number? In which case, surely the same time to help them, the mind races. And then after a while, when it becomes clear that this person may have simply gone of their own volition, then you find yourself almost wishing that something awful had happened,

because that would make more sense. Who is just, who is buying a clutch of raffle tickets and then, I mean, the callousness, the coldness. It's chilling, isn't it? It chills me to the call. The notion was that any gift left unclaimed, was then a gift directly to Satan. What about an exfoliating myth? Anything to do with cleanliness was seen to be very much the devil's work.

This is why good, godly people from the 15th and 16th centuries onwards refused to bathe, thinking that getting their bum out anywhere other than the toilet would invite the devil to climb up it. So then you get to the end of the raffle session, you give out the rest of the prizes, the trestle table, you know, depletes as you give out the plastic funnel and the Dennis Thatcher and all this kind of stuff. And then I guess that the Epsom salts and the exfoliating mitt are just left there. Well, I kept them in my possession, obviously, because it's sort of, you know, I am the raffle manager.

It's my responsibility. But do you know what? It had been such an almost perfect day. And to have this happen at the end, I truly. It just, it knocked me for six and I just thought, I have to resolve this. Otherwise, I am never going to be able to sleep again. And in that moment, I just, I looked at the crowd and I looked down at the trestle table and the Epsom salts and the mitt. And I just thought, I am not going to rest until I have given the winner their rightful prize.

In the weeks since the fair, Tabby has devoted herself entirely to finding the person who bought the raffle ticket. Her first move was to visit airports and ports in case the person was trying to leave the country. Not with much success. Even though I explained the situation, I had Keith with me as well just to sort of, for sort of, what would you say, the gravitas, I suppose.

I wasn't even asking for anything much, just passenger lists and photos and addresses. and names. That's, and contact telephone numbers. Not, you know, I'm not going around your house to, you know, I'm not having the keys to your house, you know, just tell me who's trying to leave the country, but no. Next, she got hold of all the CCTV footage in Dali. What I didn't realise, 99% of the CCTV cameras in town are fake.

Didn't realise that. They got the red lights flashing, but they're all, apart from one that's just pointed at a bin outside Morrisons, that that's the only real one. Now, the step that you took that I think some of our listeners will have heard about already because it became kind of viral. It became a bit of a viral thing, an image went around the internet. You engaged the services of, I believe they're called a forensic artist. So these people tend to work for the police.

They will talk to someone who witnessed a crime maybe, and then they will draw a picture of the alleged perpetrator. Now, you engage one of these people and you said, I will describe who I saw to you, you can draw it and then we can disseminate this picture and see if anyone's seen them. Is that right? Yeah. That's right, yeah. You know, I can't draw myself.

You know, I gave my honest account and I feel like it was an honest depiction of the man. Now, the reason this became sort of nationally known is because the picture looks extraordinarily similar to the actor John Travolta. John Travolta, yeah. Yeah. Look, I'm an honest person and it does look like Drontovolta, but to me it also, I look at that drawing and I think, yeah, he is the man who bought the ticket. Okay, interesting. So is it your belief, and you've obviously had a lot of time to think about this? Yeah. Is it your belief that the person who bought the raffle tickets 501 to 505 is John Travolta, or is it someone who looks like John Travolta?

I mean that's the crux, isn't it? It's Schroederinger's John Travolta. I think it's a bit far-fetched myself. Have you seen the picture created, though, by the forensic artist? Because it's, I mean, it's John Travolta. It is striking, yes, but I don't want to denigrate people. I wonder if the artist was influenced by ideas that have been around for all. while. There have been all kinds of sightings of John Travolta in the Dali area for years.

I've seen. Whether it's teenagers coming from a big night out and being, you know, frightened by something on the path, whether it's farmers who cannot explain the injuries to their hephers. In a way, John Travolta has become a bit of a local boogeyman. He's the core of all kinds of local law and conspiracies. He's been used to explain burglaries. He's been used to explain broken down cars, even. Most insurance claims in the Dali area will include him as a reason these days. And I think it's getting a little bit out of hand. Nothing's ever been confirmed. And of course, Travolta himself, to my knowledge, as not publicly comment is. So you're saying that it's kind of a kind of social contagion, like this idea has taken hold that Travolta lives in the area?

That's my feeling, or that he visits regularly to wreak mischief upon the area. And it's either Travolta or it's a very, it's a Travolta-esque figure. But I think lots of, it's an ancient community. Every ancient community will have its devil will have its, and that will develop over time. And sometimes it's a creature, the beast of Bodmin Moor. Sometimes it's a ghoul or a ghost or a goblin or a troll. It just so happens in Dali. It's John Travolta.

There are some historians who believe there is a John Travolta at every point in human history. And of course that has become very popular as a theory these days. But the academic grounding, I would say, is not exactly sound. John Travolta is an actor who can disappear into a role. And so it is very easy to see parallels for him throughout human history. Yes, there are flared, trousered men doing the distinctive staying alive dance pose engraved in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Yes, also there appear to be

in medieval manuscripts, depictions of someone who looks not unlike John Travolta and someone who looks not unlike Samuel L. Jackson holding what looks not unlike something like a gun like they're from Pulp Fiction, but in fact, that's actually a depiction of two separate bishops giving a blessing to a goat that, yes, does look a bit like Uma Thurman, but we have to understand that people often see what they want to see. Yes, there was someone with the name John Travolta who was incredibly influential in the Italian Renaissance. Several popes have had the name John Travolta, several kings, emperors of China, most of the Ethiopian royal family. Is that a coincidence? I would like to say, yes, of course it is.

What about the further theory that some historians or other academics have put forward, that there is indeed a John Travolta in every country on every continent at every time in human history, almost in every town there is a John Travolta figure, a kind of figure of mischief that is John Travolta. Yes. I think, yes. In pagan tradition, we often think of these trickster figures, but also sometimes revered figures, figures of authority, people who we look to to learn new dances or know what babies are saying. Rather than perhaps saying that John Travolta has percolated every level of human society, perhaps a sociologist would say that human society naturally models itself into placing John Travolta or a John Travolta-like figure at its pinnacle.

There's something natural about that. That's it, yes. It's a natural order where a Travolta, a Travolta. Tervaltyne figure or Travoltaine substitute is required for the maintenance of order at any point. Tabby, what are you doing now to try and find them? Are you pounding the streets or is it? It's sometimes on foot. It's often online though. You know, Facebook forums, telegram groups, WhatsApp communities, just trying to get the word out there.

Do you know what? you um one thing this has taught me is like accept help right wow okay your community have come together to help you yeah community and also like quite unixote sort of help from unexpected communities as well um so i kind of by accident stumbled across um sort of group of um i don't know how you describe them really um vigil antipedo hunters right yeah you know they've got a very strong i guess i brand but they've actually a couple of them have really have really sort of jumped in you have no suggestion that the person that bought the ticket from you is a paedophile absolutely none at all no all i saw was someone buying a ticket you know i didn't see any anything untoward yeah but they've

been really helpful because they they'll accost anyone in the street you know quite aggressively really It's quite scary in a way, but good to discount people, you know. Yeah, because in a way, I mean, I guess you'd really hope they don't find him. Yeah. Yeah. I have told them, you know, you don't need to hurt him. He hasn't, he quite literally has not done anything apart from obscond. From a raffle.

Whether they've taken that on, yeah, from a raffle. Whether they've taken that on board or not is, you know, I don't, I hope, I hope they have. And if this isn't too trite a question, how are you, Tabby? I do have some dark moments. I can't deny that. But there is solace, I think, in tradition and history. And I think back, you know, 600 years ago to those pigs, you know, the original pack, those original little little cheeky boy.

and, you know, they're ripping this man apart, you know, they're eating him alive, literally. And I think, did they give up? No. And I think if they can do it, you know, if a group of pigs, 600 years ago, can rip a man, limb from limb, and then devour every morsel of him,

if they can do that, I can send a few emails, you know. And I do think those pigs really do teach us a lesson in sort of endurance and, you know, humility and resilience as well. Yeah. History of the Dali Spring Fair teaches us so much about our past, our present, and what perhaps we have lost.

You can see a man torn apart by pigs today, but you'll be on your own, on your screen. And I think we've lost that communal sense. I don't know if you've got kids, they probably have seen a man torn apart by pigs, but you won't have been there with them. And I think that's sad. Well, thank you very much, Tabit.

It's been great to talk to you. I wish you all the best. Thank you so much. And I guess it's just worth saying to our listenership, if you see someone, especially if they're holding a raffle ticket and they look like John Travolta, please do ring the action line,

the number of which is... It's 0800 pigs, pigs, pigs. And we've also got a website which is www. Find the Dali raffleman.weebly.bis. And that website is manned 24-7. A big thanks to Tabby Pondlicker,

Professor James Harcum, and of course Bob Cheskoffick. The traditional poem, Grab the Frenchman by the beak, was read by the actor Gloria Del Patinson Marengo. So, that's all we've got time for this month. If you're after more Beef and Derry News, get over to the website now, where you'll find all the usual stuff

as well as our off-topic section. where this month we do a forensic deep dive into Enya's tax affairs. So, until next time, beef out. Thanks to Mike Shepard, Freya Parker, Mike Wozniak, Sammy Dobson and Linnaeus Sage. And thank you for listening. This is my last time of banging on about Max Fund Drive, but I am going to do it. Also, as I said, at the halftime break, another episode will be coming out next Monday and another bonus content for those of you who have signed up.

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