The Real James Herriot (16 page)

My dear Mother and Dad,

It was nice to hear your voices the other night and it alleviated to a certain extent the black misery which has been periodically descending on me lately. I may as well tell you how I feel. If you folks were financially secure, I would be happier now than I have ever been which would be natural since I am going to marry the girl I love and who loves me.

You know, never in my life have I felt closer to you two; I seem to have grown up suddenly and life has taken quite a different aspect. I can see, now, everything in its proper place and with its proper value, and right on top of everything stand my father and mother surrounded by thousands of memories that have suddenly grown much clearer and more dear than ever. And yet, at the very same moment, I feel that you folks think I am letting you down and
it is a horrible thought which has haunted me ever since that bad session we had on the phone….

It is queer, the things that pass through my mind, streams of little memories that are as clear as day to me now. I see you, Dad, coming in from Yarrows when I was playing with my new meccano. And you, Mother, washing my lip after I'd tried to knock that lamp post down. Dad teaching me how to ride my fairy cycle or me watching the back of your head when you were playing the piano in the ‘Alex' and I was perched in the front row. Sunday school and the musical nights with Gus. Mother carting me in a shawl through railway barriers so that I could go for less fare and Dad exasperated over my music lessons. And those two years of pain I had; what would I have done without you when I often felt that I was finished with being strong and healthy?

All through those thoughts there is one thing stands out like a beacon; the wonderful way in which you put me first and gave me a chance to be something in the world. At this moment, I know that what I have and what I am, I owe entirely to you and never did any son appreciate the fact more…. And for goodness sake don't think that you are losing me. You have got me more firmly and closely at this minute than you ever had when you were putting little silk blouses on me. And it will always be that way. And if you're worried about my choice, you don't need to. Joan isn't the perfect creature and has her faults as we all have but I couldn't find a better wife if I looked for the rest of my life.

She worries like mad over her folks too, as she does a lot to support them. They haven't any money except what her old man is making and he hasn't much of a job. When he was clerk of the council here, they had lots of money but now they are broke. Joan does a lot towards the running of their house apart from her wages. She does the shopping and a lot of cooking and general housework…. She could have married money several times over but she has chosen to come and share a bed-sitting room with me which proves a few things.

Now it is very late and my eyes are closing so I really must stop. Remember, as they say about here, ‘It'll be right!'

This was an immensely difficult time for Alf, with his loyalties split between the girl he loved and his parents to whom he owed so much. His mother should never have worried about her son's choice of wife, one who would look after him superbly all his life. Joan's greatest pleasure was looking after people and it was not only Alf, but his children as well, who would benefit from this admirable quality. From
the earliest days of their marriage, when she would cook, keep a clean home and faithfully answer the telephone for the practice, right up until the final months of his life, when she helped to nurse him through his incurable illness, she would be a totally dedicated wife. The determination to marry Joan Danbury in 1941 was never to be regretted for a moment.

Happy though he was at the prospect of marrying the girl of his choice, the stark response by his parents to his engagement – and, later, marriage – to Joan Danbury, threw Alf into an emotional turmoil. The debt which he felt he owed his parents was one he considered he could never repay, one which preyed on his mind to such an extent that it was partly responsible for a severe breakdown he would experience twenty years later. It was a debt he would, in fact, repay many times over.

James Alfred Wight and Joan Catherine Anderson Danbury were married at 8 o'clock on the morning of 5 November 1941 in the church of St Mary Magdalene in Thirsk. It was a bitterly cold day, and the sum total of five people attended. The best man was none other than his senior partner, Donald Sinclair, while Joan was given away by her employer, Fred Rymer, from the mill in Thirsk. The elderly Canon Young, who conducted the marriage ceremony, shivered with cold throughout and could hardly get through the proceedings fast enough.

At my parents' Golden Wedding celebrations held at the Black Bull Inn near Richmond in 1991, my father reminisced, during an amusing speech, about his quiet little wedding all those years ago. His abiding memory was of Donald standing next to him, his teeth chattering with cold, and mumbling a long succession of ‘Amens' at regular intervals, while Canon Young droned on in the icy church. At one vital point, the Canon asked Alf, ‘Will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded husband?!' He corrected himself upon receiving a blank stare. Alf would never forget his feelings on that happy day as he walked out of the church with his new bride. He wrote later, ‘I'll always remember that sight – the cold frosty morning, the empty street facing us and the slanting beams of sunlight.'

It was an amusing experience for Joan and Alf to watch, many years later, the wedding of James Herriot and his bride in the television series ‘All Creatures Great and Small'. The occasion portrayed was a substantial one, with the bride wearing white and many notable people in attendance.
The reality was so different; although not uncommon during the war years, few people will have had a more modest wedding ceremony.

Somewhat surprisingly, Joan's parents, both of whom thoroughly approved of Alf as a future son-in-law, did not attend the wedding of their only daughter, despite living only a mile or so away from the church. However, they had their reasons. Apart from Joan's father, Horace, being very ill at the time, they were aware of the problems between Alf and his parents and, knowing that Alf and Joan wanted a very quiet wedding, they decided to stay at home. With Alf's parents having stated their reluctance to attend the wedding, together with difficulties presented in travelling around Britain in wartime, the result was a complete absence of both sets of parents on that unpretentious, but nevertheless, important day.

Alf and Joan had every justification for such a small and secretive occasion. A larger wedding, to which they would have felt compelled to invite many people, was, quite simply, beyond their financial horizons. Joan Danbury was in no better financial state than her husband: the sum total of her wedding dowry was a half-share in a pig which she owned in partnership with a man called Bob Barton. This big strong man, who drove the delivery lorry for Rymer's Mill, could throw eight-stone sacks around as though they were tennis balls, but there was a soft streak to his nature. When the time came for the pig to be killed, Alf remembered the big man leaning on his shoulder, his eyes full of tears. In the course of many months looking after her, he had become deeply attached to this appealing creature.

‘Mr Wight,' he said, his voice cracking with emotion, ‘that pig – Ah'm tellin' yer, she were a Christian!'

There was some consolation, however. Not only was the meat from that pig, when roasted, some of the finest Alf had ever tasted, but Joan made some magnificent pork pies from some of the choicest cuts. Alf's Uncle George Wilkins, who considered himself an expert in the art of pork-pie tasting, came down from Sunderland one day and asserted that he had never eaten anything finer. That wonderful pig had not died in vain; Joan's dowry may have been a modest one but it provided an unforgettable gastronomic experience.

After the wedding ceremony, Alf and Joan had a champagne breakfast with Donald at 23 Kirkgate before setting off on their honeymoon in the Yorkshire Dales. They stayed in the Wheatsheaf Inn, in the village of Carperby in Wensleydale. This small village inn is so proud of the
fact that the future James Herriot spent two nights of his honeymoon there, a plaque on the wall describes it as ‘James Herriot's honeymoon hotel'. The inn was famed for its good food all those years ago and the young couple, who were both tremendous eaters, made the most of it – wading into kippers, as well as bacon and eggs, for breakfast, with plenty of locally-made Wensleydale cheese and butter always available.

For the first two days of their honeymoon, Alf spent his time T.B. Testing cows in the hill farms of Wensleydale. This seems a rather unusual activity for such an important holiday but, with the practice becoming busier, he had insisted to Donald that he would combine work with pleasure.

In the event, those few days turned out to be very enjoyable. The farmers and their wives, amazed that the young couple were spending a working honeymoon, treated them to real Dales hospitality in the form of delicious farmhouse meals followed by gifts of ham, eggs and cheese – a real bonus in wartime when such delicacies were severely rationed.

One farmer's wife, Mrs Allen of Gayle, situated at the head of Wensleydale, had repeatedly teased Alf about his marriage prospects. To her astonishment, he said to her just one day before his wedding, ‘I've taken your advice, Mrs Allen. I'm going to get married!'

‘Eeeh,' she replied, ‘Ah'm right pleased! When?'

‘Tomorrow!'

‘Termorrer? But ye're comin' 'ere to read't TB Test in a couple o' days' time.'

‘That's right!'

What a surprise she received when she duly met his brand new bride, dressed in old trousers and scribbling down the numbers of the cows in the book.

The weather was kind and the sight of the Yorkshire Dales in their best autumnal colours enhanced their enjoyment of that unconventional holiday.

On the Saturday morning, Mr and Mrs Alfred Wight left the Wheatsheaf to spend a short time with Alf's relatives in Sunderland – although the entire staff of the hotel was needed to push Alf's old car before it could be persuaded to start. Once in Sunderland, they were treated to some wonderful north-east hospitality, with Alf's happiness tempered only by the deafening silence from his parents in Glasgow. He wrote to them, on the last day of his honeymoon in Sunderland.

My dear Mother and Dad,

This is really the first chance I have had to write since the big event as the first part of our little holiday has consisted of work. I have tried in vain to phone you. But I am worried that you have sent no word – not even a wire on the day. I really am upset about it as I hurried back to Thirsk on Saturday expecting to find some word from you. I only hope nothing is wrong and I'll be relieved when I hear from you….

It is lovely here among the Wilkins and I only wish you folks were sitting in the room with us all. One thing I hope is that there will be a letter from you waiting for me at Thirsk.

Despite his happiness at such an important period of his life, Alf worried continually about the parents to whom he felt so attached. He was, however, convinced that he had made the right decision in standing up to his mother, and hoped that the passage of time would ease her strong feelings about his marriage to Joan. One thing was certain; he was not going to allow this to come between himself and his wife.

There were other important matters to be addressed, not least his future as a veterinary surgeon that stretched before him. After only three days in Sunderland, he was back at work in Thirsk, jumping once again on the treadmill that was veterinary practice. His honeymoon had lasted exactly six days, two of them working ones. His holidays away from the practice would be few and far between for the next ten years of his life.

Alf and Joan Wight's first home in Thirsk was the upper reaches of 23 Kirkgate, from where they looked out over the old high-walled garden down to the outbuildings, behind which soared the huge elm trees with their permanent residents, hundreds of noisy rooks. Donald had readily agreed to Alf's request to let himself and Joan live in part of the big house. This caused no disruption to Donald as the top floor of the house up until that time was unused, while there was still plenty of space on the lower levels.

Alf and Joan's ‘kitchen' at the top of the house differed from the modern equivalent in one notable respect; it had a sink but no water. Every drop had to be brought up in jugs from the ground floor, an excellent form of exercise that did wonders for Alf's circulation. All the cooking was done on two gas rings, with a square tin perched on top of them serving as an oven. Despite these primitive conditions, Joan produced excellent food, something she would continue to do for the rest of her married life. On the first floor, below the kitchen, was their bed-sitting room. This had a fireplace around which they used to sit on cold winter nights, listening to the radio, reading, or playing their favourite card game, Bezique.

Furnishing these two rooms was not a problem. There were no big decisions to be made, their financial status leaving them little choice but to buy the cheap but durable furniture that was available at the many salerooms and house sales in the surrounding area. Alf bought a table from Leyburn for six shillings, and a pair of chairs for five shillings each from a farm client, while Joan's mother provided them with a bed. They also received many useful items as wedding presents from friends in Thirsk.

There was one item they bought new. It was an oak coffee table made by a local woodcarver, Robert Thompson of Kilburn, a village close to Thirsk which is overlooked by the famous White Horse carved into the nearby hillside. This great craftsman's work was, and still is, sold all over the world. When Alf and Joan bought the table, Mr Thompson told them he had some work on display in Westminster Abbey and
that he had set his sights on Buckingham Palace next. His trade mark was a little mouse carved on to the wood, and this table is in my mother's sitting-room to this day. I can picture my father, just three days before he died, his arm resting on the fine old table that he bought with his last few shillings, fifty-three years before.

Being married transformed Alf's life. Although the young couple had to divert every penny into the upkeep of their home, they enjoyed their new lifestyle. Joan loved keeping the place in order, housework being a pleasure to her, while Alf's work continued to fascinate him. It was also tiring, and he returned to his wife at the end of each day with no great desire to ‘go out on the town', which was just as well considering the state of their bank balance. He bought a wireless called a ‘Little Maestro' and the two of them would sit for hours listening to it. Alf was fascinated by the wireless, considering it to be a wonder of modern technology, and hardly able to believe that he could listen to people all over the world, their distant voices issuing from the little plastic box as though they were there with them in the old house in Thirsk.

With Brian Sinclair away at veterinary college, Alf did little socialising, but he still managed to enjoy the odd pint or two, notably with his father-in-law, Horace Danbury. Alf got on well with his parents-in-law from the very beginning. They were both quiet, easy-going people who approved of Alf from the moment they met him. Unfortunately, Horace was not a well man; he suffered from a severe chest complaint that was to be the cause of his death only a few years after meeting Alf. In the meantime, however, the two men enjoyed many a drink together, often before a monumental Sunday lunch prepared by Joan's mother, Laura.

To Alf's intense relief, his own mother soon began to take a more relaxed attitude towards Joan. He took Joan occasionally to Glasgow for the weekend and this had the effect of easing the tension that had previously existed between the two women. His mother, able to see that Alf was extremely happily married, would never again express her feelings so vehemently, although there would, for the first few years of his married life, still be an air of slight unease whenever he took Joan north to Glasgow. Alf, satisfied that things could only go on improving, did not let this upset the happiness of his first year as a married man.

Reading was one of his greatest pleasures and he read for many an
hour during the long winter evenings. In the summer months he developed a new interest – gardening. It was an activity he would always enjoy, but he would never have a finer place to follow this pastime than the old walled garden behind 23 Kirkgate. The soil was of the finest quality and, with the high walls around the garden ensuring that the plants were protected from the cold winds, it was capable of growing almost anything. Soon there were neat rows of onions, lettuces, potatoes, peas, beans and other healthy-looking greens, while outdoor tomatoes flourished against the walls, and apple and pear trees stood proudly above the packed rows of vegetables. There was a huge bed of asparagus at one end of the garden while, at the other, a thicket of rhubarb grew at a furious rate, developing stalks like tree trunks. Strawberries were grown in the summer and at one point Donald, who was sporadically enthusiastic about the garden, even grew some melons. The place was a gardener's paradise.

After Alf and his family left Kirkgate, the garden gradually fell into disuse and, many years later, when thronging fans visited the surgery, they would look out over the garden from the french windows in the waiting-room, but there was little for them to see. Two apple trees, the wonderful wistaria and the old walls that still stood as steadily as ever, were all that remained of the garden James Herriot described so lovingly in his books. They would have seen a different picture could they have looked out at the garden when my father was in charge fifty or more years ago.

The reason for the rich soil was twofold. There was always a plentiful supply of manure from the local farms, and this was assiduously dug into the soil – sometimes by a very unwilling Brian but more often by Alf with the assistance of an elderly man called Wardman.

Wardman was a general factotum employed by Donald to look after the property, the garden, the cars and anything else that needed attention. He also cared for the hens and pigs that Donald and Alf kept at one time in the buildings surrounding the yard at the bottom of the garden. Wardman had come through the Great War of 1914–18 and there was nothing he liked better than to reminisce about his experiences to anyone who could spare an hour or two in his dark little den, a converted stable in the yard where he lovingly stored all his tools.

Wardman appears in the Herriot books as ‘Boardman' and, as the author wrote, he found a willing listener in Tristan. Brian certainly used
to sit for hours down there, smoking a long succession of Woodbines and convulsing old Wardman with his inexhaustible store of jokes. The old man looked forward eagerly to Brian's holidays from veterinary college.

Another reason for the rich soil was that it contained the deeply-buried bodies of innumerable dead animals. One of the problems for the veterinary surgeon in those days was the disposal of carcases. This is not a worry for the modern vet – all bodies are now cremated cleanly and efficiently – but, years ago, there existed only the doubtful services of the knacker man who not only picked up fallen stock from farms, but would call in at the surgery as well to pick up the bodies of animals that had been post-mortemed, died naturally, or had had to be put to sleep. When the knacker man failed to arrive at the surgery – which was frequently – the vets had to roll up their sleeves and dig the bodies deeply into the ground. The garden gradually turned into a giant cemetery, one that grew giant vegetables.

One evening, around twenty years ago, I was with my father in an Italian restaurant in Yarm (he always loved pasta dishes) and, as so often, he was reminiscing about old times. The subject of the garden, and life with Donald, came up. I thought that I had heard all the astonishing exploits of Donald Sinclair, but my father had another one or two up his sleeve.

‘Donald is an amazing man, and I have written about him at length in my books, but there are some stories about him that I would never print,' he said.

‘Why not?' I asked.

‘Well, Donald is a bit sensitive about the way he has been portrayed as Siegfried in the books. He doesn't consider himself to be an eccentric and I don't wish to make matters worse by telling everyone about some of his more bizarre behaviour.'

I was surprised. I knew that Donald was a very unusual person but I thought I had heard all the stories.

‘Did I ever tell you about the “hot bones”?' continued my father with a sidelong glance.

This sounded an interesting one. He then proceeded to recount an episode that illustrated, perfectly, the impulsive and chaotic nature of his partner.

One day, in the early years of his employment in Thirsk, Alf had to put a little dog to sleep. He understood the owner's grief and performed
the sad task with great sympathy and respect for her feelings. He thought that this was the end of the matter but, about three weeks later, she came in to the surgery to thank him for his kindness, and to ask him a very delicate question.

‘Mr Wight,' she said, ‘you were so kind to me and I am very grateful to you but I have been haunted by something since that sad day.' There was a pause as she composed herself before continuing. ‘Could you tell me what happened to the body of my poor little dog?'

Alf's brain shot into overdrive. This was a difficult one. How could he tell the owner that the knacker man had probably picked it up and that his body could be anywhere? Suddenly, he was aware of a presence at his right shoulder. Donald had walked into the room and was in one of his confident and effusive moods.

‘I'm so sorry about your dog,' he said, oozing charm, ‘and you have no need to worry. He was cremated!'

The lady was overjoyed. ‘Oh thank you so much!' she said. ‘That is exactly what I hoped you would say. If you will excuse me for a moment, I'll just pop out to my car. I have a cloth to put his ashes in.'

She walked out of the door to a profound silence from the two veterinary surgeons. Alf felt a sudden tightening in the pit of his stomach.

‘She shall have them!' Donald cried suddenly, springing out of the room.

There were a few tense moments as Alf tried to guess his partner's next move. He steeled himself for his return. He did not have to wait long. Donald swept back through the door within two minutes, brandishing a dustpan in which was a heap of grey ashes and bones. Down in the old back-yard, Wardman kept an outside boiler, used for heating swill for the pigs, underneath which piles of ash and old bones collected; it was to here that Donald had just executed a speedy visit. The owner, who had returned, held out the cloth and Donald poured the ashes onto it. Alf stared at his partner. He could not believe this was happening, but the charade was not yet over. Suddenly the lady gave a loud shriek and threw the cloth high into the air; within seconds, the room was thick with smoke. The little dog may have died weeks ago, but his ‘ashes' were still hot.

Alf might have had a fairly quiet life during the first years of his marriage but, with a partner like Donald Sinclair, there was never a dull moment. One evening the two of them were having a drink in the Golden Fleece. After a hard day's work, it was a pleasant place in which
to unwind – the good beer, pleasant chatter and the roaring fire all helping to make the world seem a better place. (This pub is called the ‘Drovers Arms' in the Herriot books.)

With them on this particular evening was a man called Scott Ingles. He was working for an organisation known as the W.A.R.A.G. This was established during the war to give advice to farmers, helping them produce food for the nation as efficiently as possible. Scott Ingles was a mild, gentlemanly person who later became a professor of Animal Husbandry at Glasgow Veterinary School – and who taught me in the early 1960s. I remember him, during one lecture, saying, ‘Nine times seven. Let me see now, that's approximately sixty-three.' He could be a little vague at times and was a most charming and inoffensive man.

He was carrying a round steel helmet in his hand on that occasion and Donald was extremely interested in it. ‘What's that, Scott?' he asked abruptly.

‘It's my safety helmet,' he replied.

‘What's it for?' continued Donald.

‘It protects me from such things as falling bricks when I am, for example, going round damaged buildings.'

‘Is it any good?'

‘Oh yes, it's very strong.'

‘How strong?'

‘Well, let me see. If you hit me with that poker there, by the fire, it would protect me from injury very effectively.'

‘Can I test it out?'