WITH newspapers awash with soppy romance today (February 14), the conversation has turned to memorable Valentine's stories.

My personal favourite starred a 16-stone pig from Shildon, County Durham, who just happened to be called 007.

007 had made it into the Guinness Book of Records in the early nineties for fathering around 250,000 piglets, and yet he had never met a sow in his life. His achievements as "Pig Daddy" were all down to an artificial insemination centre near Thirsk.

As news editor of The Northern Echo at the time, I decided it would be a great story for 007 to be introduced to a girlfriend for the first time so the necessary arrangements were made with his owners.

Photographer Brian Clough (pictured below) was given strict instructions: "I want a picture for the front page of the pig with a rose between his teeth," I boldly declared.

The Northern Echo:

This is a family newspaper so I won't repeat what Cloughy said in reply but suffice to say he thought I was a couple of slices short of a full packet of bacon.

"Pigs'll eat anything – just buy a bunch of roses on the way to Shildon and chuck 'em down in front of it," I told him.

He shuffled off, grunting to himself, but came back with the perfect Valentine's Day picture of 007 looking for all the world like Casanova.

Sadly, the record-breaking porker trotted off to the pig sty in the sky shortly afterwards and the picture can't be found in the archives.

Gone but not for-trot-ten.