AN Oxfordshire pig breeder who waited almost 50 years for an award from the Royal Show has bagged four in just five years.

Stanley Samuels, 78, scooped Breed Champion for his British saddleback pigs and the cup for the best group of four pigs at the last Royal Show at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire.

Mr Samuels, of Chichester Close, Bicester, has kept pigs since he was about 15 and started breeding pedigree saddleback pigs in 1962.

But it wasn’t until 2004 that he scooped his first award at the Royal Show. He went on to win breed champion again the following year.

And it was fitting that at the final Royal Show earlier this month, Mr Samuels picked up the title one last time.

Mr Samuels, whose wife Enid, 70, used to help out with the pigs, used to have a 25 acre farm, but now has a three acre smallholding in Launton, near Bicester.

He said: “I got my first pig, a little white one, back in 1946.

“I left school at 14 and went to work on a farm.

“They had a saddleback sow and I took a liking to her, and that’s where it all started.”

Looking after the animals has been hard work.

Mr Samuels said he would get up at 4.15am every morning to go and feed the pigs before driving a delivery lorry the rest of the day.

But after he had a stroke two years ago he decided to run down his stock and now plans to call it a day in 2012.