Animal frantics

This week, a large section of the Scottish countryside has been in a state of alarm about an escaped pig. Roadblocks were set up, armed policemen roamed the perimeters of lonely copses and burly men scanned the streets anxiously before emerging from their front doors.

It is true that the pig in question is a large-ish, bristly, tusked wild boar, on the run from a special wild boar farm and therefore (given his unfamiliarity with the terrain) liable to some rather erratic behaviour. But does it really need half the constabulary of the Lowlands to give up catching burglars and smugglers to devote their time and energy to penning the pig? These efforts have been in vain, incidentally, for after the police had made a spectacle of themselves, it was decided to lure the animal out of his arboreal hiding-place by tethering an attractive wild sow at a strategic point. Sex might win where brute force usually fails. Not much of a surprise there.

All this effort has been expended because of the terror felt by local inhabitants. Nor was Scotland the only place where a wild boar has caused consternation this spring. In Essex, for several months this year, a 17- stone boar "terrorised" the villagers of Hatfield Peverel and Wickham. It would turn up in their gardens looking for acorns and roots. Strangely, however, the only thing that got hurt in the whole affair was the boar himself - eventually run over and killed by a Peugeot 309 GTi. Conclusion? That Peugeots are a hell of a lot more dangerous than wild boars.

On Thursday of this week, a "rampant" Friesian, which had escaped from Axminster market, "ran amok" in the gardens behind Musbury Road. So dangerous was this beast that six officers in two police cars (led by - and this is no joke - Inspector Steer) were needed to corner it, before vet Philip Bull (also true) shot it dead. Nobody else was hurt.

What is interesting about all this is the degree of timidity it uncovers. If something vaguely unfamiliar and wild happens around us, we instantly call out police, coastguard or vet. We cannot deal with mice or beetles without Rentokil, we flap dementedly at wasps and bees; the advent of earwig or woodlouse disgusts us. Entire relationships are founded on mutual assistance in dealing with the depredations of spider or rodent ("I does the creepy-crawlies, he does the rats").

Yet once we ruled almost all of the Indian sub-continent (tigers, snakes, insects), much of Africa (lions, wart-hogs, meerkats and hyenas, according to Disney) and the whole of Wales. How can this paradox be explained?

The answer is that, for a millennium, there have been two Britains. One explored the world in small ships, encountered hostile tribes, macheted its way through impenetrable jungle and was afraid of nothing. The other lived in Pinner, worried about the state of its lawn, sat about in doctors' waiting-rooms demanding relief from the 'flu and was anxious about practically everything.

It is very hard to reconcile these two utterly different nations. Presumably, as in so much else, the explanation lies in class. The explorers were the young aristocrat and the working-class lad - both inured to hardship and ill-treatment from the earliest age. After the latrines of Eton and the privies of Salford, the thought of heeding nature's call armed only with a spade and a large leaf held no terrors. Perhaps even relief. Boiled beef in Balliol or tripe in Wigan prepared digestive systems for grubs, mealie worms and manioc roots. For the merchant classes and the suburbanites, these were unimaginable hardships.

Now, of course, with the exceptions of Ranulph Fiennes and the underclass, we are all bourgeois. Just visit any branch of Homebase if you do not believe me. The only wildlife we wish to encounter is pecking nuts in the little green bird-house. Our idea of natural catastrophe is if the Christmas lights fuse, or the pond pump seizes. We are doomed to live in terror of harmless things.