AS much as they relish their full English breakfast with bacon and pork sausage cooked just so, the people of this country also feast on the exploits of the underdog.

Heroes are made of the likes of Eddie the Eagle, British tennis players and the Norwegian entrants in the Eurovision Song Contest. But add to this wholesome sentiment the nation's love of animals and what do you get?

It is a mania that bewilders a watching world when the combination comes together in a tale like that of the two little piggies who went on the run from an abattoir in Wiltshire.

The fugitive pair - nicknamed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Pig after the intrepid Wild West outlaws - became instant stars in the media as TV networks, tabloid newspapers, animal lovers and earnest vegetarians joined not just the hue and cry across the countryside, but the battle to save the bacon of Butch and Sundance.

Butch was the first in custody, signed up by a newspaper for his story and spared the chop, but Sundance remained at large running a gauntlet of blazing flashbulbs and the gum-booted mob of Fleet Street's finest waving cheque-books and guarantees of lifelong sanctuary under his snout.

And so a happy ending is ensured.

Butch and Sundance earn their place in the annals of English eccentricity and when their slice of fame fades, we get back to reality - and the question of whether to have one sausage or two with our bacon.

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