Welcome to the latest OiNK series on the blog, marking the 40th anniversary of the entire run with a quarterly look back at all of its reader contributions. Every three months between now and December 2028 I’ll corral all the Grunts together (and other pages as they appear) on the release date of the last issue from that quarter. These will include drawings, jokes, press clippings, celebrity spoofs and even birthday cakes! We kick off with issues four to ten from the summer of 1986.
The first readers popped up in #4 and they were all asking for Uncle Pigg’s advice. Given how Wildcat’s editor went to all of his neighbours’ kids asking for stuff to fill the first few issues with and Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends blatantly made up letters until real ones began appearing, I had to ask co-editor Patrick Gallagher about these early entries, especially as they were all of a similar type.
“We never made any of them up”, I was happy to hear from Patrick, who assembled the page every issue. “Once OiNK found its audience the mail started coming in thick and fast, so we didn’t need to invent anything. The first few issues were quiet, sure, but once readers realised they could write in the Pig Sick questions took off naturally.” That they did, with the first lot coming from David Tornambe in London, Gerald Richards in Birmingham and Edward Alcock in Norwich, the very first pig pals to see their names in OiNK!
The rest of the page was filled with examples of what the editors were looking for, put together by Patrick. In fact, Grunts was a part of the first issues before anything had arrived from readers, with Patrick drawing up some celebrity spoof characters and jokes for Nasty Laffs and Specs, all to inspire the children to put pen to paper. It was a joke for those two characters from reader Sam Mundy from Northamptonshire that welcomed us to #5, alongside a poem from Peter Galley from Shoeburyness.
This issue had a very loose theme with a bit more attention given to the fact they were beginning to see how popular the comic was becoming with kids. A couple of strips played up to this, there was also a photo story promoting reserving OiNK at the newsagent by making a joke of what regular readers of OiNK could look like, and of course we had the joke and poem on page three and a page of Grunts.
Well, okay, it was just Pig Sick and an additional celebrity spoof, with the rest of the page made up of those very familiar adverts and the coupon IPC/Fleetway comics always gave us to fill out when writing in. But hey, the ball was rolling. Michael Standley from Surrey was wise to the kind of silly letters the comic wanted, while James Rainbow of Powys and Andrew Williams from Croydon got the kind of cheeky response from Uncle Pigg we all wanted, let’s face it!
The Piggy Personality wasn’t drawn by J. Harris of Halesowen, rather it was suggested by them and drawn by Patrick, but as OiNK continued more and more readers would draw their ideas and send them in. Some of those to come are simply superb and, of course, very funny. You can also see that the first winner of the Messy Bedroom Competition was coming up in #6, which caused a bit of consternation with some parents.
Co-editor Tony Husband once told me that in those early days when they ran this competition they found out some kids were deliberately messing up their rooms just for the chance to appear in OiNK! Whether this contributed to the competition not running for very long I don’t know. Simon Sarfas’ room in Tetbury certainly deserved whatever he received. I would’ve laughed at these at the time but as someone in their late 40s with his own home to take care of I shudder when I see these photos today!
Things were still being added to Grunts like the Ham Ewing drawing, although they weren’t really needed as the page was filling out nicely. Those free badge kits with #2 (and Steve McGarry’s famous ”I love my little Willy”) certainly inspired Michael of Charlton, Caroline Szyman of Glenford and James Burton of Kent, and the Nasty Laff credit went to Tammy Gibbs from Banbury in Uncle Pigg’s introduction. Adam McGhie of Kent got some great advice to sit on and think about, James Williams of Lincoln reminds me of an old school friend of mine during our ‘A’-levels (yes, I’m talking about you, Fergie!) and there was an apparently anonymous letter… hmm.
The summer-themed #7 was next and alongside some funny advice from Doctor Mooney we had Sharon Storey of Bury sharing a gag all kids already knew. I certainly remember telling it (and being told it many times). Meanwhile, Michelle Bond from Cambridge, Mandy Dore of Kent and Uncle Lumpy (apparently) of Ashford showed the trend forming, that of pig pals wanting their hero editor to take the mickey out of them.
At the end of the issue he and all of his editorial team went off on their hols, leaving a skeleton crew in charge of #8. Of course, this being OiNK it was literally a crew of skeletons, with bone-themed replacements of most of the comic’s cartoonists and they were all completely inept. It made for a unique and very funny issue with everything going wrong, the Grunts page included.
Between ink spills and upside-down printing, County Claire’s Jennifer Tierney got an answer that made me think Boss Bones was going to do this part properly… which of course would be the wrong thing to do in OiNK! However, read the answer to the second letter from Paul Hunter of Glasgow and you’ll see what was really going on.
Sarah May Naylor of Pudsey, Joseph Taylor of Morecambe and Chris Collins from Stockport got similar treatment, a Royal Regiment got a shout-out and a reader was the one to make a mistake by not sending their details in with their joke! This was also the first time we saw the Pig Pack Lucky Numbers which each member of OiNK’s club received when they joined; a random one printed in every issue earned their reader a mystery piggy prize. I’m still at a loss as to why I never joined!
The first thing that stood out to me upon reading #9’s page now was the person who sent in the newspaper clipping about cow pat bingo. It was none other than Cowpat County creator himself, Davy Francis (and yes, I’ve checked with him just in case it was a very unlikely coincidence), although Patrick drew the cartoon of Giles. (Even OiNK’s cartoonists were club members!) Another clipping was also sent in and poor Emma Norwood of Stourport was forever immortalised as a Sun reader.
W. Skinner of Broadstairs would be happier being remembered as sending in a drawing I’m sure, Coventry’s C. Dobson shared a joke that would only work in this particular comic and Joanne Brown of Dartford definitely needed help. Colette Magee just down the road from me performed sheer sacrilege surely, and admitted it! Imagine doing that to your OiNKs! Then, Rory Rapple from just down the train line from me sounded like a man with a podcast decades before they were invented.
The Messy Bedroom competition continued with Rose Carter (and friend) of Southampton. It may just be the black and white printing of the colour photo making the details hard to make out, but I think I’ve seen worse. Perhaps in my own room around the late 80s. Finally for this issue, one more reader joke was squeezed in on page 30 and if you blinked you’d have missed Leicestershire’s E. Simpson’s rather morbid sense of humour.
Part of #10’s Grunts page may be familiar to you as UB40’s Ali Campbell was part of our Grunts Celebrity Special last Christmas, and Uncle Pigg was loving it, asking readers for proof of more celebrity readers! Matthew Bond of Edmonton missed out on using Humphrey HOGART, surely, while Zayed Al-Otailia wrote in all the way from the U.A.E., some clever dick used a pseudonym and got the response they deserved and finally for now S. Molloy from Dublin really got into the spirit of Nasty Laff and Specs.
The early OiNK adopters were off to a good start, but just you wait until you see what they came up with as this series continues! If you’ve seen your name above or if you were lucky enough to be included in an issue to come please do reach out, I’d love to find out what your piggy prize was! You can DM the OiNK Blog on Instagram or Facebook, myself on Bluesky or you can email the blog directly. Next time, I’ll be trawling through the next eight issues including the first Christmas edition. You’ll be able to check out the creativity of your fellow pig pals from Monday 28th December 2026.
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