Put the Piggy Down, Geoffrey!
If I say that I first started dressing up as animals in 2000, aged 40, it sounds a bit odd. If I try to explain that this was when I first started dressing up as animals in a professional capacity, it sounds even odder. Oh well!
Before that, there was probably a brief appearance as Paddington Bear at the village fete. But the first time I was persuaded to get into an adult sized animal costume was in 2000. That was the year of the very first Big Brother series on Channel 4. But the link between these two things is another story!
I remember the first animal costume well. It was Gerty the Guinea Pig. It smelt very strongly of Febreze fabric freshener. It was a very hot day in Hackney and, behind that jolly guinea pig face, I wasn’t smiling.
Strictly speaking, I wasn’t dressed as an enormous rodent in my professional capacity as Education Officer at Hackney City Farm. I was simply doing it for dosh. Not for myself, you understand (there are much easier ways to earn a living) but for the permanently cash strapped City Farm. We had some ‘celebrity’ guinea pigs at the farm – and the makers of Gerty Guinea Pig food had offered us money in exchange for publicity photos. That meant some mug had to get into a hot, furry suit and pose with the kids.
After that, it all got a bit more serious.
My next job was Interpretation Officer for the High Weald Area of Outstanding Beauty. In this role, Wildflower Meadow Conservation, the Importance of Ancient Woodland and the History of Sunken Routeways all needed to be explained.
The local agricultural show was looming, so the Education Officer and I devised a game for our stand. Its purpose was to explain that ‘unimproved’ grassland grows more wildflowers than ‘improved’ grassland – and is therefore better for bees and other insects. In the relative comfort of the office, we thought: what better way to promote our game than dress up as giant insects?
The day before the show, we collected our outfits from the fancy dress shop. My colleague’s ladybird costume was a modified Humpty Dumpty, but my costume had to be specially made. I had envisaged a simple yellow and black striped tabard of fur fabric, under which I could wear whatever I liked. But to my horror, the Fancy Dress Lady had really gone to town! My colleagues fell about as I spluttered “But… it’s got a GUSSET!” I found myself completely encased in a bulbous leotard, with close fitting, elasticated holes in the thick fur fabric – just big enough to shove my legs (in tights) through. No need to ask if my bum looked big in it. I knew it did.
Did I learn anything from this? Apparently not. The following year, I was back for more. This time, mercifully unrecognisable as a giant white rabbit ‘chef’, serving up ‘gourmet hay’ from wildflower meadows. The sign above the tent said ‘Le Meadow aux Quat’Saisons’. It had been funny back in the office. But there had been torrential rain for a week before the show and even three layers of carrier bags could not keep the rabbit’s white, furry feet clean.
In retrospect, this was the worst outfit I could possibly have worn on an agricultural showground that was under a foot of brown, liquid Wealden mud. The limp, bedraggled white rabbit costume was a very sorry sight – drying out for days in the greenhouse while I delicately tried to chip the baked mud off its feet. The Fancy Dress Lady was very understanding, in the circumstances.
My nemesis was the innocent looking pink pig costume I wore for Weald Woodfair. This time, the dressing up was in aid of explaining the link between the Weald’s woodlands and its sunken routeways – originally ancient pig droving routes.
You can find more about this here.
Even the largest fancy dress hire outfit in Sussex couldn’t supply an authentic Anglo-Saxon pig costume. “In those days,” I enthused over the phone to a bored fancy dress operative, “the pigs would have been quite primitive – a bit like the modern Tamworth Breed. Quite fierce looking and covered in ginger bristles.”
My Anglo-Saxon pig was baby pink and fluffy. And it had that familiar smell of Febreze.
With my (much more authentic looking) Anglo-Saxon Pig Drover colleague, I stood in the woods in my fluffy pig outfit, telling anyone who seemed even vaguely interested how the Weald’s sunken routeways were formed.
Every time I removed the piggy head for a breath of fresh (i.e. non-Febrezed) air, giggling colleagues took photos of me with my incongruous pink, fluffy body. So, though it was hot and claustrophobic, I chose to keep the head on. The most realistic thing about the ridiculous head was its eyes. Definitely piggy – their size giving a very limited field of vision.
Being a Friday, it was ‘Schools’ Day’ at Woodfair. School groups approached, pointing and laughing – much too excited to want to hear about Anglo-Saxon pig droving. Trying to engage them was exhausting. I eventually gave up trying to intercept them or even follow their movements with my piggy eyes – so they only entered my field of vision once they had passed me and were heading up the track, deeper into the woods.
One such school group passed by, chattering excitedly. I had spotted some easier prey – middle aged and bearded – and was just about to pounce, when I felt an acute crushing sensation around my chest. Before I had time to cry out, I felt my feet leaving the ground. I then realised that I wasn’t having a heart attack, but had instead been grabbed from behind and lifted up! By what or whom I had no idea, as I could only see what was directly in front of me – the last school group, led by its teacher.
Suddenly, the teacher stopped in his tracks as if he sensed something was wrong and looked round at his group. He must have done a quick head count and realised someone was missing. By this time, I had probably started to wheeze out a few cries for help. The teacher glanced in my direction and then froze. A look of horror came over his face and he began hurrying towards me, shouting “Put the piggy DOWN, Geoffrey!”
At once, I was gently lowered and then released from the vice-like grip. Geoffrey – a powerfully built young man with Down’s syndrome – stepped out from behind me, patted me on the head, gave me a lovely smile and followed the very embarrassed teacher back to their group.
Later, once again in‘civvies’, I passed Geoffrey with his group. I wondered whether to introduce myself as ‘the piggy’, but decided not to. I think the teacher realised it was me all the same.
Before that, there was probably a brief appearance as Paddington Bear at the village fete. But the first time I was persuaded to get into an adult sized animal costume was in 2000. That was the year of the very first Big Brother series on Channel 4. But the link between these two things is another story!
I remember the first animal costume well. It was Gerty the Guinea Pig. It smelt very strongly of Febreze fabric freshener. It was a very hot day in Hackney and, behind that jolly guinea pig face, I wasn’t smiling.
Strictly speaking, I wasn’t dressed as an enormous rodent in my professional capacity as Education Officer at Hackney City Farm. I was simply doing it for dosh. Not for myself, you understand (there are much easier ways to earn a living) but for the permanently cash strapped City Farm. We had some ‘celebrity’ guinea pigs at the farm – and the makers of Gerty Guinea Pig food had offered us money in exchange for publicity photos. That meant some mug had to get into a hot, furry suit and pose with the kids.
After that, it all got a bit more serious.
My next job was Interpretation Officer for the High Weald Area of Outstanding Beauty. In this role, Wildflower Meadow Conservation, the Importance of Ancient Woodland and the History of Sunken Routeways all needed to be explained.
The local agricultural show was looming, so the Education Officer and I devised a game for our stand. Its purpose was to explain that ‘unimproved’ grassland grows more wildflowers than ‘improved’ grassland – and is therefore better for bees and other insects. In the relative comfort of the office, we thought: what better way to promote our game than dress up as giant insects?
The day before the show, we collected our outfits from the fancy dress shop. My colleague’s ladybird costume was a modified Humpty Dumpty, but my costume had to be specially made. I had envisaged a simple yellow and black striped tabard of fur fabric, under which I could wear whatever I liked. But to my horror, the Fancy Dress Lady had really gone to town! My colleagues fell about as I spluttered “But… it’s got a GUSSET!” I found myself completely encased in a bulbous leotard, with close fitting, elasticated holes in the thick fur fabric – just big enough to shove my legs (in tights) through. No need to ask if my bum looked big in it. I knew it did.
Did I learn anything from this? Apparently not. The following year, I was back for more. This time, mercifully unrecognisable as a giant white rabbit ‘chef’, serving up ‘gourmet hay’ from wildflower meadows. The sign above the tent said ‘Le Meadow aux Quat’Saisons’. It had been funny back in the office. But there had been torrential rain for a week before the show and even three layers of carrier bags could not keep the rabbit’s white, furry feet clean.
In retrospect, this was the worst outfit I could possibly have worn on an agricultural showground that was under a foot of brown, liquid Wealden mud. The limp, bedraggled white rabbit costume was a very sorry sight – drying out for days in the greenhouse while I delicately tried to chip the baked mud off its feet. The Fancy Dress Lady was very understanding, in the circumstances.
My nemesis was the innocent looking pink pig costume I wore for Weald Woodfair. This time, the dressing up was in aid of explaining the link between the Weald’s woodlands and its sunken routeways – originally ancient pig droving routes.
You can find more about this here.
Even the largest fancy dress hire outfit in Sussex couldn’t supply an authentic Anglo-Saxon pig costume. “In those days,” I enthused over the phone to a bored fancy dress operative, “the pigs would have been quite primitive – a bit like the modern Tamworth Breed. Quite fierce looking and covered in ginger bristles.”
My Anglo-Saxon pig was baby pink and fluffy. And it had that familiar smell of Febreze.
With my (much more authentic looking) Anglo-Saxon Pig Drover colleague, I stood in the woods in my fluffy pig outfit, telling anyone who seemed even vaguely interested how the Weald’s sunken routeways were formed.
Every time I removed the piggy head for a breath of fresh (i.e. non-Febrezed) air, giggling colleagues took photos of me with my incongruous pink, fluffy body. So, though it was hot and claustrophobic, I chose to keep the head on. The most realistic thing about the ridiculous head was its eyes. Definitely piggy – their size giving a very limited field of vision.
Being a Friday, it was ‘Schools’ Day’ at Woodfair. School groups approached, pointing and laughing – much too excited to want to hear about Anglo-Saxon pig droving. Trying to engage them was exhausting. I eventually gave up trying to intercept them or even follow their movements with my piggy eyes – so they only entered my field of vision once they had passed me and were heading up the track, deeper into the woods.
One such school group passed by, chattering excitedly. I had spotted some easier prey – middle aged and bearded – and was just about to pounce, when I felt an acute crushing sensation around my chest. Before I had time to cry out, I felt my feet leaving the ground. I then realised that I wasn’t having a heart attack, but had instead been grabbed from behind and lifted up! By what or whom I had no idea, as I could only see what was directly in front of me – the last school group, led by its teacher.
Suddenly, the teacher stopped in his tracks as if he sensed something was wrong and looked round at his group. He must have done a quick head count and realised someone was missing. By this time, I had probably started to wheeze out a few cries for help. The teacher glanced in my direction and then froze. A look of horror came over his face and he began hurrying towards me, shouting “Put the piggy DOWN, Geoffrey!”
At once, I was gently lowered and then released from the vice-like grip. Geoffrey – a powerfully built young man with Down’s syndrome – stepped out from behind me, patted me on the head, gave me a lovely smile and followed the very embarrassed teacher back to their group.
Later, once again in‘civvies’, I passed Geoffrey with his group. I wondered whether to introduce myself as ‘the piggy’, but decided not to. I think the teacher realised it was me all the same.
