Domesticated pigs in medieval Britain contrasted with the Wild Boar in that they tended to have lop ears rather than pricked and their tails tended to be curly rather than straight.
For many centuries the typical Old English hog had big slouching ears hanging over its eyes (said to make the animal more docile as it could not see where it was going), a narrow razor back, low shoulders, flat slab sides, a long rootling snout, and long strong legs so that it could range widely in its foraging and walk long distances to market. It was a large-framed, hairy animal, slow to grow, and usually a dirty yellow- brown in colour, with or without spots or belts of another colour. This was the common 'Celtic' domestic pig of northern Europe.

The ancestor of the British domestic pig is the native Eurasian Wild Boar (Sus scrofa), which used to range all over Europe and Asia, in climates varying from typically British to Siberian and tropical. The domestic pig, under the skin, is not so different from the Wild Boar.
The Wild Boar's natural environment is woodland, scrubland or steppe, with the luxury of a muddy place to wallow on occasion. The animals live in a matriarchal society based on one or more females and their daughters; the males tend to live separately. Sows might have up to fifteen striped piglets in a litter, but they have only a dozen teats and in most cases each piglet demands its own teat. Wild Boar, like other wild pig species, are vocal and communicate constantly within the family group with grunts and squeaks. They feed mainly on plants (foliage, roots, fruit, bulbs) and fungi but will also eat earthworms. Their ability to rootle into plant debris and moist soil is legendary.

Most domestic pigs have curly tails, though wild pigs and many Asian domestic pigs have straight tails. The most obvious characteristics that differentiate the various pig breeds are the carriage of the ears, the shape of the face, the colour of the skin and coat, and the general conformation - body shape and size.
Ears range from 'prick' (upright) to 'lop' (falling over the face), with a range of semi-prick and semi-lop in between. Snouts range from long and tapered, typically seen in the Wild Boar, to dished, snubbed and squashed in breeds influenced long ago by Asian imports.

You cannot make bacon, as you can milk, merely out of the garden. There must be something more. A couple of flitches of bacon are worth fifty thousand methodist sermons and religious tracts. The sight of them upon the rack tends more to keep a man from poaching and stealing than whole volumes of penal statutes, though assisted by the terrors of the hulks and the gibbet. They are great softeners of the temper and promoters of domestic harmony. They are a great blessing ...'

The sudden disappearance of pigs from the British landscape within living memory was remarkable. They have become no longer a familiar sight — to the extent that many people today are startled at the large size of a fully grown pig.
As recently as the 1950s, outdoor herds had been the norm on every pig farm. In addition, most smallholders reared a few outdoor pigs, and before the Second World War many a cottage dweller still kept the traditional family pig at the end of the garden, fattening it on household scraps, orchard windfalls and vegetable-patch waste, and regarding it almost as a member of the household — apart from its destiny as home-killed, home-cured meat for the table.
In the post-war decades pig farming changed radically and many pigs became hidden from public view, raised on a large scale within purpose-made buildings where highly bred and efficient commercial animals were intensively reared to supply consumers with affordable bacon, pork and sausages.

One of the most significant tea-related developments to impact the second half of the twentieth century was the appearance of the tea bag. Like a few other great inventions – including, most significantly, penicillin – the origins of the tea bag were the result of chance. In the early twentieth century, New York tea dealer Thomas Sullivan created tea samples for his clients by placing small amounts of tea into little silk bags. Some mistakenly infused the bag, rather than taking the tea out of it first, and even went as far as reporting back to Sullivan that the silk was too fine and should be replaced by a different material. Soon Sullivan was producing specially designed gauze tea bags, ideal for infusing in boiling water.

The interwar years were a particularly innovative time for tea wares. After the First World War, more and more potteries focused on catering for the mass market. Companies such as Poole Pottery, Shelley and Susie Cooper created affordable tea sets with simple shapes and stylized decoration. Clarice Cliff produced some of the most memorable art deco tea sets. Perhaps her most wacky design was the Conical Early Morning Set, whose solid handles were virtually impossible to use comfortably. But what is lacked in practicality, it made up for in humour. Cliff’s use of vivid colours, bold and often exuberant shapes and patterns were extremely popular, particularly between the wars. This was also the heyday of novelty teapots. Designed with fun firmly in mind, they came in every shape imaginable – from racing cars, trains, tanks and aeroplanes to Donald Duck, Humpty Dumpty, comical human faces and quaint country cottages.

For those people not keen on dancing but still desirous to enjoy a cup of tea outdoors, there were many other options. A few London department stores created wonderful roof gardens where shoppers could take a break. Now sadly lost, the pergola-clad roof garden restaurant at Selfridges served morning coffees, lunches and teas. So too did the magnificent roof garden restaurant at the Derry & Toms department store. Now known as Kensington Roof Gardens, they are something of surprise on busy High Street Kensington and well worth a visit.

Founded in Kensington in 1892, Fuller tea rooms were the ideal choice for tea drinkers looking for smaller, quieter and more elegant surroundings. As Claire Hopley, author of The History of Tea, explains, ‘Friends met in cosy alcoves; tea came in elegant cups with beribboned tongs for sugar’. Other small tea-room chains opened across the country, including the famous and still operating Betty’s of Harrogate, founded in 1919 by the Swiss confectioner, Frederick Belmont. Branches of Betty’s later opened in other Yorkshire towns, such as York, Skipton and Ilkley.

The rise in tea drinking continued unfettered in the early part of the twentieth century. By the early 1930s, and despite the high unemployment and destitution of the Great Depression, tea drinking reached its peak, with over 10 lb consumed per person per year, equivalent to an average of about five cups of tea a day.

In times of hardship, it seems that most Britons turn to tea for solace. This was certainly true of Gordon Comstock, hero of George Orwell’s 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Impecunious and living in a grimy bedsit, Comstock finds comfort in secretly drinking cups of tea, which are banned by his despotic landlady.