Pig Killing 1976-77

In the winter of 1976-77 I made a number of visits to Old Farm, Little Stainton, North Yorkshire. There Cyril Richardson and his family reared pigs and, around Christmas, killed them. The hams and flitches were cured, the bacon rolled and hung up.

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The morning of pig killing day. Snow on the ground, pig in the barn. Farmer Cyril Richardson peeps in. The pig peeps out. North Yorkshire 1976

Leading the pig out into the yard. North Yorkshire 1976

The killing. Left-to-right: Everett Moore butcher, his assistant Jim Woodhouse, Herbert Bray wearing ICI coat, Tony Critchley farmer lad. North Yorkshire 1976

The dying pig is held on the stool while its blood drains out. Left-to-right: Everett Moore butcher, his assistant Jim Woodhouse, Herbert Bray wearing ICI coat, Tony Critchley farmer lad. North Yorkshire 1976

Butcher Everett Moore pulls off the cleers. North Yorkshire 1976

Cutting out the eye. North Yorkshire 1976

Butcher Everett Moore scrapes hair. Boiling water is ladled onto the flesh and the pig is shaved. North Yorkshire 1976

Washing off. North Yorkshire 1976

Shaving the pig. North Yorkshire 1976

Boiling water is ladled onto the flesh and the pig shaved. North Yorkshire 1976

Butcher’s assistant Jim Woodhouse with the pig’s head. North Yorkshire 1976

Separating the chitterlings. North Yorkshire 1976

Freshly slaughtered bacon pig carcasses hanging in the outhouse. North Yorkshire 1976

Elsie Richardson with the lace fat from around the belly. North Yorkshire 1976

Hams in the larder. North Yorkshire 1976

Salted flitches and hams in the larder. North Yorkshire 1976

Cyril Richardson sharpening knives. North Yorkshire 1976

Bacon rolling. Cyril and Elsie Richardson enjoy a coffee break. North Yorkshire 1976

Elsie Richardson and Tony Critchley wash salt off a bacon flitch, Cyril Richardson sharpens his knife. North Yorkshire 1976

Elsie Richardson and Tony Critchley begin to roll a flitch of bacon. North Yorkshire 1976

Bacon rolling. Cyril Richardson wields the mallet. North Yorkshire 1976

Elsie and Cyril Richardson with Tony Critchley (right) twitch up a bacon roll with twine. North Yorkshire 1976

Cyril Richardson knotting twine on a roll of bacon. North Yorkshire 1976

Farmhouse kitchen, lunch break on killing day. Cyril Richardson (arm over back of chair) and family. Old Farm, Little Stainton, near Skipton, North Yorkshire. December 1976

Rolls of bacon and hams hang in the farmhouse kitchen. North Yorkshire 1976

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Bodleian Libraries Links

Bodleian Libraries | Archive of Daniel Meadows, photographer and social documentarist (CMD ID 12752, 17418, 17823, 18768) | Meadows' photographic archive of negatives and contact sheets, 1969-1986, Nov 2014 | Negatives and contact sheets 07, Sep-Dec 1976

Negatives and contact sheets 08, Dec 1976-Jan 1977

Negatives and contact sheets 15, May-Jun 1978

Also:
Bodleian Libraries | Archive of Daniel Meadows, photographer and social documentarist (CMD ID 12752, 17418, 17823, 18768) | Photographer-in-residence to the Borough of Pendle, Lancashire, Jun 1975-4 Sep 2020 | 'Pig Killing' picture story: slides, master work prints and spare prints, Dec 1976-[late 1970s], n.d.

'Pig Killing' picture story: master prints, typescript and manuscript drafts, publication as 'Home Bacon', c.1977-1983

And:
Bodleian Libraries | Archive of Daniel Meadows, photographer and social documentarist (CMD ID 12752, 17418, 17823, 18768) | Photographer-in-residence to the Borough of Pendle, Lancashire, Jun 1975-4 Sep 2020 | Digitised audio of interview with Cyril Richardson, undertaken during Meadows time as photographer-in-residence in the Borough of Pendle, Lancashire, originally recorded 2 Dec 1976, 3 Sep 2020