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DH: There's very little that I write which is autobiographical, but the one I have just spoken of, and this second one, were in different degrees autobiographical.

The second one, Daybreak, about the chap who threw his father to the pig, was something that happened many many years ago.

Someone got off a bus with me, in the wilds of Lincolnshire, and it was completely dark, and we walked back together ....... and as we walked, I realised that this chap was off his rocker.

It was a very alarming experience; the dawn was just coming up... and the thing remained in my mind....and then later I met an organic farmer, something of a spiritual man, who kept a pig, and said that many people in Lincolnshire had simply disappeared in the pig sty; pigs ate the lot.

The two things came together and made a play.


I think for the benefit of our shocked listeners, we ought to point out that what actually happened in your play is that a young man who's in the Air Force comes back and finds that his father is abusing his mother - is that not right?

DH: Well, knocking her about, yes.


And so he does for him, his father, and there's only one way to dispose of him, and that's into the pigsty.


DH: Yes, that's right; it's not quite as directly pointed as that.

Fred: Thing just comes into me mind....if you don't mind me asking .....

Pigman: Oh?

Fred: There's always a bit of something left. You said his belt buckle.

Pigman: It were in't muck of stall, wi' owd sow grinnin' above it....

Fred: And his boots?

Pigman: Aye..

Fred: But on the window sill?

Pigman: Aye.

Fred: Y'see what's bothing me....

Pigman: I know what's bother' you, Fred ...... me uncle Leonard told me what to say.

Fred: What you've told me?

Pigman: But it's come unstuck, hasn't it.... with the boots?

Fred: Well, it didn't occur to me when you first mentioned it, but it does raise the question ....I mean, did he remove his boots, place them on the window ledge, and then take a header into the pigs?

Pigman: Doesn't sound likely, does it?

Fred: No, it doesn't.....

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