The Real James Herriot (11 page)

When he got back to the practice, he went to find Mac. ‘They're a miserable lot out there, Mac,' he said, recounting the morning's work. ‘What do I have to do to please them? If I'd conjured up a few more calves they still wouldn't have been happy.'

Mac had had a while to recover from the previous evening's festivities and was feeling chirpier. He thought for a while and stroked his moustache. Then he looked at his unhappy young colleague. ‘Well done, Fred!' he barked. ‘Don't worry, you've done a good job – but tell me, how long did you take to produce those two calves? About fifteen to twenty minutes, you say?'

‘Yes,' Alf replied. ‘It was a good fast job although I say it myself.'

Mac thought for a moment. ‘Do you know what I think, Fred? You got 'em out a bit too quick!'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘You just think about this. Those two farmers have been struggling on for two hours or more and you come along and the whole show is over in a few minutes! It makes them look a bit stupid! And another thing. They're paying us good money to calve that cow and you have made it all look a bit too simple! If I had been there, I would have made
the job appear very difficult. I would have shown them that they were getting their money's worth. Never make a job look too easy, Fred.'

Alf listened in silence. He was receiving one of his first lessons in the art of veterinary practice.

Mac gave his young assistant a pat on the shoulder. ‘Cheer up, you've done a really good job!' He paused and a half-smile played across his face. ‘Do you know, Fred,' he continued, ‘there have been many occasions in the past where I have been manipulating calves inside cows, with the sweat pouring off me, holding the bloody things in!' Mac finished his little lecture with a statement that Alfred Wight would never forget; something that he, himself, would repeatedly drill into the many young assistants who would work under his guidance in the years to come. ‘Remember this, Fred! It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it!'

Alf was beginning to realise, very quickly, that the acquisition of knowledge was, in itself, not enough to guarantee success in veterinary practice, but he was a willing listener, and he was learning fast. In those few months working in Sunderland, he learned a great deal about human nature, too, observing Mac's many moods as well as those of a great variety of people who came to the surgery in Thornhill Terrace. He also learned that he could easily be brought down to earth with a jolt, just as he was beginning to think that he was one of the finest vets in the land. With Mac, he learned that the life of a veterinary surgeon was one long, unpredictable succession of triumphs and failures.

One day, while operating on a horse with Mac, and feeling a bit low after a day of little success, he was gratified to learn that even the most respected members of his profession can lose their cloak of dignity at times. They were being helped by a local man who was telling them that, at his last place of employment, the great Professor Mitchell had been called to operate on a couple of young horses. Willie Mitchell was regarded as one of the finest horse surgeons in the land, and Alf was deeply impressed.

‘It must have been a great experience to see him at work,' he said, wishing that he could have had the opportunity to observe such a revered and dignified figure. ‘He must be a very impressive man.'

‘Aye,' came the reply, ‘'e's a clever feller, all right. 'E laid out them 'osses on the ground wi' chloroform an' 'e operated on 'em, smooth an' fast as yer like.'

‘It must have been wonderful to see,' Alf continued, ‘to watch a real
artist at work, someone totally in control of the situation.' The man thought for a second or two, before leaning forward. His face broke into a grin. ‘Mind yer, one o' them 'osses stopped breathin' – an' yer should 'ave seen 'im dancin' on the bugger's ribs!'

Alf may have been lucky to have a job but he had to work for his money. He worked almost every night with only an occasional Sunday afternoon off. He once had to summon up the courage to request a day off at Easter as his mother was coming down from Glasgow to visit her relatives. Mac nearly had a fit. One whole day! He was so taken aback by such an audacious request that the wish was granted.

As well as mediocre pay, the young veterinary surgeons of the day were given cars of very dubious reliability in which to travel to their visits. Alf Wight's car was no exception. To climb into his first car, a tiny Ford, was an adventure – a journey into the unknown. Each time he sat in its spartan interior, he weighed up the chances of arriving at his destination. On one occasion, he dented the wing of the car in a Sunderland street. Two men, who came to his assistance, lifted the whole car on to the pavement, gave the bodywork a mighty heave, and the damage was straightened out in a matter of seconds. The future James Herriot would have been just another statistic had he ever had a head-on collision in such a vehicle.

He gave a good description of life behind the wheel in one of his letters to his parents: ‘The car, using the word in its broadest sense, makes a colossal din and, in the country, the birds rise from the hedges in fright and the cows and horses in the fields look definitely startled. The vibration is terrific over 35 mph and my liver will be in splendid condition after a month or two at it.'

Alf would go on to spend a large proportion of his life behind the wheel of a motor car. Those very first days on the road ensured that he was always the first to appreciate the comforts of modern motoring, comforts that he would not experience until very many years later.

The thrill of savouring his first job in veterinary practice received some added but not entirely welcome impetus from several visits by the German Air Force. In these early days of the war, the Sunderland area received many such attacks, with the big shipyards on the River Wear being the prime targets. Alf described, in a letter dated 30 January 1940, the frightening experience of treating a cow in the middle of an air raid: ‘The enemy planes are giving our coast a lot of attention. Mac
and I had a grandstand view of the whole show as we were at a farm on the water's edge in South Shields, just opposite the ships over which the enemy planes were diving and swooping. We saw all the firing from the AA batteries and the ships, and the Nazi being chased off by our fighters. The poor old cow didn't get much attention as we dashed out of the byre after every bang and left her!'

Nazi Germany may have removed a little of the gloss from Alf's enjoyment of his days in Sunderland, but there was one aspect of his work that he thoroughly hated. Although he realised that it was the dogs' very existence that had enabled him to keep his job, visits to the greyhound track at South Shields were ones he dreaded. His task of checking the animals before each race was an unenviable one. In those days, the track seemed to be patronised by many strange, furtive people who would stoop to any trick to win a race. Young Alf Wight, who had been brought up in such an honest and upright home, and could not identify with such devious behaviour, faced a barrage of abuse when he, rightly, would not allow dogs to race as the result of illness, or such practices as doping and overfeeding. He did not mind working hard for his money, but this was like threading his way through a minefield, with deceit and dishonesty shadowing his every move.

Many years after he became famous, with his financial status somewhat improved, he would recall those days at the dog track when he was a young vet with hardly a penny in the world. At the end of one of the meetings, he was downing a welcome cup of tea, seated opposite a bookmaker who was counting the takings for the day. Alf had never seen so much money in his life as the bookmaker continued to arrange notes and silver into huge piles on the table. He suddenly paused, taking in Alf's frayed shirt and raggedy trousers. He raised one eyebrow, grinned, gave a curt nod and casually flicked half a crown across the table before returning to his counting. As Alf would write in
Vets Might Fly,
in which he transposed his experiences at the dog track from Sunderland to Yorkshire, he felt grateful to the man, not just for the money, but for the rare experience of a gesture of friendship towards him.

Those impecunious days, however, provided the future James Herriot with many rich memories that, years later, he would recall in his books, and Mac would be one of the earliest of his veterinary acquaintances to be portrayed in them – albeit loosely. In the first two books, an unpleasant character called Angus Grier appears, and some of the
incidents involving this man were based upon Alf's experiences in Sunderland. To be fair to Mac, he was in no way the disagreeable character that Angus Grier was. My father liked Mac and the two men developed a close friendship, but he was undoubtedly capable of displaying many different moods. He was not a man to be crossed and, when in a temper, it was wise to adopt a low profile.

Mac and his wife often invited Alf round for an evening meal, which was frequently followed by a game of table tennis or Monopoly. The sessions round the Monopoly board could be serious engagements. If Mac started to lose, tension soon sprang into the atmosphere, with any further deterioration in his fortunes inevitably leading to raised voices and the children running upstairs in tears to bed.

Alf would always remember this explosive but clever man with great affection and as yet another of the great characters who have graced the veterinary profession.

The insecurity of his position at McDowall's was never far from Alf's mind. With the ever-present threat of dismissal should the practice fall upon leaner times, he regularly scanned the
Veterinary Record
for alternative employment. Mac himself had assured Alf that prospects of his obtaining a permanent post within the practice were remote. Not that he relished the idea of going into partnership with Mac: he was a delightful man in many ways but one who enjoyed the high life a little too much. Alf envisaged years of slavery stretching ahead.

There was another reason for casting his net in more distant waters, and this was a reluctance to spend his future in Sunderland. The north-east of England had been hit especially hard during the depression and there was little money about. Although he had great affection for the place of his birth, Sunderland could be a grim place in which to work. During the winter months, which seemed to last for half the year, the north-east winds screamed into the town and roared along the streets, often accompanied by sleet, snow or freezing rain. Huge waves smashing onto the roads on the sea front, and the rows of drab, terraced houses standing defiantly against the elements epitomised the aura of depression that hung over the town. It was a dismal place to begin a professional career.

There were very few positions advertised in the veterinary journals but one day, while leafing through the pages of the
Record,
he noticed that there was one available in Thirsk. He had never heard of the place.
Where was Thirsk? Upon perusing a map, he discovered that it was in Yorkshire, only about fifty miles south of Sunderland. The job was described as ‘Mainly agricultural work in a Yorkshire market town', with the principal of the practice being a veterinary surgeon by the name of D. V. Sinclair.

Although the majority of the work in Sunderland had been with dogs and cats, he was interested. He had enjoyed his taste of work with the larger animals and the thought of spending more time with farm animals intrigued him. Yorkshire held no particular appeal for him. He knew little about it – having an image of the county as a flat, industrial wasteland, full of smoking factory chimneys – but it was not far to go for a look. He wrote for an interview and, to his surprise, he received a reply. On a sunny day in June 1940, he set off to see Thirsk for himself.

Many people who have read the James Herriot books have their own particular favourites. My father's family and his close friends have little hesitation in nominating the first book,
If Only They Could Talk,
closely followed by the second,
It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet.
These two books, which were later combined into one volume under the title of
All Creatures Great and Small
for the American market, are full of the episodes that were already familiar to us since we had heard my father tell the stories so often.

The authenticity of the narrative added extra appeal. In these books are to be found many of the most colourful characters who entered his life at this point. Nowhere is his ability to manipulate the reader's emotions more brilliantly illustrated than in that first book which quietly appeared on the bookshelves of Britain in 1970. Here, the whole foundation of the Herriot saga is laid, upon which successive best-sellers were built. The scene is set as the reader is introduced first to the stage upon which his show would be performed – the town of Thirsk, to be immortalised in the books as Darrowby, and the Yorkshire Dales, among whose green pastures and high, windswept moorland he determined that his stories would unfold. The main characters that run through James Herriot's books appear in the pages of these early works – his partner Siegfried, Siegfried's younger brother, Tristan, and James Herriot's future wife, Helen. The reader is also introduced to many of the most colourful Yorkshire people among whom he worked. For any book – or television series – to be successful, rich and varied characterisation is essential. James Herriot's books radiate with unforgettable characters.
He did not have to invent them; they were all around him, contributing towards making his first years in Thirsk among the hardest but happiest of his life. Many of the incidents that James Herriot recounted in
If Only They Could Talk
were reproduced just as they happened. His first meeting with Siegfried was no exception.

When Alf Wight knocked on the door of Donald Sinclair's surgery, at 23 Kirkgate in Thirsk, he was about to experience the first of a lifetime of surprises with his future partner. Donald had completely forgotten that the young vet from Sunderland was coming for the interview and was not at home. The housekeeper, Mrs Weatherill, did not seem particularly surprised that her employer had overlooked the appointment; she apologised, gave him a cup of tea and told him to make himself at home. I am not in the least surprised that Donald forgot that appointment. After joining the practice myself, over twenty-seven years later, it was not long before I realised that whenever Donald was involved in the organisation of anything, confusion and disarray inevitably followed. Little had changed in the passing years. By the time he finally returned home that day back in 1940, Alf had fallen asleep under an old acacia tree in the garden. He woke to find Donald standing in front of him. He staggered hastily to his feet.