The Real James Herriot (26 page)

Those days were equally enjoyed by his family for whom he always made plenty of time. My memories of the 1950s are of taking off into the hills around Thirsk, or up into the Yorkshire Dales, and walking for miles, becoming familiar with every corner of the country around our home. Visits to the seaside – Whitby, Scarborough and Marske – were a special treat. As we two children grew older, we would camp and stay in Youth Hostels with Alf, as well as play cricket, football and tennis. He was not just a father – he was one of us.

Shortly after moving into our new house in 1953, Alf bought an extra
plot of land behind the house on which he built a tennis court. He described the nerve-jangling experiences of its construction in his final book,
Every Living Thing,
but the effort was worthwhile. We played countless hours of tennis on that court.

He and I had many marathon games. In my teenage years, I played a great deal of tennis and regarded myself as a fairly competent performer, going on to win the school tennis championship – but I could rarely beat him. Our games were closely contested encounters of rude energy versus class. He would control the game from the back of the court, firing strokes along the white lines, while I just ran and ran. At the end of the game, he would lay his hand on my sweat-soaked shirt and say, ‘Never mind, Jim, you're improving all the time. You'll thrash your old man easily one day!' I never did.

As well as tennis, golf was a game that Alf played regularly throughout the 1950s and, with the practice being quiet during the summer months, he had the time for it. Joan was also interested in the game and became a very steady player. Amongst the many people with whom they played were a couple who became extremely close friends – Douglas Campbell and his wife, Heulwen. Douglas was a chartered surveyor who was introduced to Alf by Alex Taylor, who lived next door to him at the time. Douglas, a tidily-built man who was always neatly groomed and very correct, could lead one to believe that he was a rather serious-minded and straight-laced individual, but there was much more to him than this. His clipped, precise way of describing things belied an acute sense of humour; he liked a drink and a joke, and the more Alf saw of this smiling man with the infectious chuckle, the more he liked him. He and Joan became such friends with the Campbells that, as well as enjoying countless evenings and weekends with them, our two families went on holiday together in 1956.

It was Douglas who had provided moral support for Alf on that shattering day in the Golden Fleece when he had desperately, but unsuccessfully, bid for the house he had wanted so badly. Later in 1951, when Alf and Joan were drawing up plans for their new house, his professional expertise as a surveyor was greatly appreciated.

The Thirsk and Northallerton Golf Club, to which Alf and Joan belonged, was a club with a difference. Because this small, nine-hole course had been purchased by the club together with existing grazing rights, it was populated for the greater part of the year by sheep. The other animals that explored the course were dogs, and two members
who made full use of this rather unusual concession were Alf and Harry Addison. In the eyes of the Golf Club Committee, Alf Wight may have been a nobody, but Harry Addison was most definitely not.

Harry Addison, our family doctor, is mentioned in the James Herriot books as ‘Dr Allinson'. He assisted at the birth of myself and Rosie, and we all looked on him as a doctor who could do no wrong. The tall, bespectacled, balding man was not only the finest player in the club but, with a strong personality that commanded respect from everyone, there were few objections to the presence of his dog on the golf course. To be able to combine dog walking with a round of golf suited Alf very well and this happy state of affairs continued for many years, but it did not last for ever. Harry Addison, having suffered a heart attack, made plans to retire to St Andrews and, at around the same time, the club committee ruled that all dog walking on the course was hitherto forbidden.

Alf was very sorry when Harry left; he used to love watching the doctor playing the game so well, marvelling at the easy swing, followed by the little white ball sailing straight and true towards the green before fizzing to a stop close to the hole. But there was another reason to rue his friend's departure; Alf, the lowly 18-handicap golfer, having lost his powerful ally, knew there was little chance of arguing his case for the reinstatement of dog walking over the golf course. His regular golfing days were finished; when it came to a decision between walking dogs or playing golf, his loyal companions won hands down.

Looking back on those days, he realised that dogs on a golf course are not a good idea and he bore no resentment against the committee, but it was a shame that his playing days came to such an abupt end. He did at least have ten happy years playing a game that gave him enormous pleasure.

It was not only tennis and golf that soaked up Alf's spare time, nor the hours he spent with his wife and children. He never neglected his parents in Glasgow, and continued to visit them regularly as he had done since his earliest days in Thirsk. His mother also made sure that he never forgot the city of his boyhood, posting to Thirsk a long succession of savoury parcels containing Scottish food that was not obtainable in Yorkshire – mutton pies, sliced sausage, ‘tattie scones', and black pudding with oatmeal. Alf still retained his love of the traditional Glasgow fare, and used to fall ravenously on these delicacies after a hard day's work around the farms.

As well as the food, his parents sent down the
Sunday Post,
a traditional Scottish newspaper that Alf read religiously. He enjoyed the accounts of the Scottish football matches, while the timeless cartoon antics of ‘The Broons' or ‘Oor Wullie' still brought many a tear of laughter to his eyes.

The short holidays in Glasgow were of great benefit to Alf. His rural surroundings in Yorkshire seemed a million miles away as he listened to the bustle of the busy streets, the cries of the street vendors, the blaring of motor horns and the almost melodious droning of the tram cars as they swayed along Sauchiehall Street and the other great thoroughfares that he knew so well.

The enjoyment of our family trips to Glasgow throughout the 1950s was frequently enhanced by the company of my father's cousin Nan, who was also godmother to Rosie and me. Nan, daughter of Auntie Jinny Wilkins, was the cousin whom my father saw most throughout his life; she was only thirteen years older than Alf and was like an elder sister to him throughout his younger days. She was an unforgettable character in the true tradition of the Bells. Despite consuming prolific quantities of alcohol as well as smoking phenomenal numbers of cigarettes, she lived to her mid-eighties. She once told us that smoking was one of her great pleasures in life, and that she had no intention whatsoever of trying to break the habit. ‘After all,' she said, ‘I've been rolling my own from the age of eleven so why stop now?'

Nan's husband was Tony Arrowsmith, a smiling benevolent man with a small pencil moustache, who spent a large proportion of his time firing off little jokes and wisecracks. Being married to Nan, he had it made: no matter the quality of the joke, Nan would laugh uproariously. Smoking had bestowed upon Nan a sharp, rasping voice with a grating laugh which we heard incessantly on those trips to Glasgow. Tony's wisecracks and the harsh cackles of Nan were a tonic for us all.

Apart from visits to Glasgow, Alf did not take his family on holiday until 1950 when the arrival of an assistant, together with the steady prosperity of the practice throughout the 1950s, meant that he had the time and the money to enjoy a family holiday every year.

In 1951, we had our first-ever family holiday at Robin Hood's Bay on the Yorkshire coast where we enjoyed the company of Alex and Lynne Taylor who were living nearby at the time. Two holidays in Llandudno in North Wales, in 1952 and 1953, were followed by a trip to the Lake
District in 1954. We stayed at Skelwith Bridge near Ambleside, where it rained mightily, but this did not stop Alf falling in love with the magnificent scenery of the Lakes and he returned there regularly for the rest of his life.

A visit in 1955 to Baronscourt in Northern Ireland, where Alex Taylor was then managing the Duke of Abercorn's estate, was followed by holidays in Scotland every year for the next five years. Two of those, to Ullapool and Skye in 1958 and 1959, were made especially enjoyable by the company of Jean and Gordon Rae and their family.

Gordon, who was an expert on natural history, enriched the expeditions into the hills with his tremendous knowledge of birds and wild flowers. My father was deeply impressed. Having had a city upbringing, and knowing little about the flora and fauna of his native land, he would listen with amazement as Gordon unfailingly identified each and every tiny flower.

Gordon was a fitness fanatic. While in Ullapool, he woke us up early to run down to the pier and dive into the sea before breakfast. My father, although keen on keeping himself fit, had by now adopted a less rigorous approach to maintaining his health; with the old days of the ice-cold baths having long since been abandoned, he politely declined to join us.

In those days, Alf and Joan never considered a holiday abroad; few people did in those days. In later years they did go abroad on several occasions, but they never enjoyed holidays more than those they took with their family and friends within the shores of their own country.

Alf looked back on the 1950s as some of the happiest years of his life. The practice was doing well, he had the pleasure of spending time with his family and, in addition, he regained those youthful habits of widening his horizons. He started several hobbies, some of them seriously, others less so.

One of the more transient crazes was that of deciding to live ‘healthily'. He bought a book by Gayelord Hauser called
Diet Does It,
and was convinced that, should he follow the advice within its pages, he would be supremely fit for decades to come. Gayelord Hauser described four ‘superfoods' that were to be eaten every day – foods that in those days were virtually unknown. Yoghurt, wheatgerm, vitamin yeast and Blackstrap molasses began to appear on the kitchen shelves and Alf
consumed them doggedly, not always with recognisable enjoyment.

One day, as he was spooning black treacle into his mouth, he was reminded of an old farmer who had told him that he was fed by his employer on the cheapest food available – black treacle and dumplings. The old man went on to tell him that t' dumplings stayed inside yer fer about a week, an't treacle went straight through yer!' I don't know what effect this strange diet had on my father's digestive system but, whatever the reason, he dispensed with it after a few months.

His resolve in following Gayelord Hauser's regime was further tested on the days when he followed another of the guru's recommendations – that of having a ‘fruit day'. This was a day when nothing but fruit was to be eaten, the idea being to ‘cleanse and detoxify' the system. He would return for his lunch, famished after a morning around the farms, to sit down to a couple of apples and an orange while his family around him devoured plates of roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and potatoes, all smothered in rich brown gravy. I used to think that my mother gleaned satisfaction out of torturing him by producing these mouthwatering meals on his ‘fruit days'. He, of course, cracked under the pressure and was soon joining the rest of us among our lakes of gravy.

Another craze he undertook in 1958 was the playing of the violin. He had always loved listening to music, and had joined the Thirsk and District Music Society the previous year, but now he decided that he would like to play.

The violin was always Alf's favourite instrument. He had all the great violin concertos on record, and admired in particular the famous performers like Alfredo Campoli and Jaschia Heifitz. Many years later, as James Herriot, he appeared on the radio show, ‘Desert Island Discs'. He had no hesitation in choosing as his all-time favourite, the Violin Concerto by Elgar.

His excursion into violin playing lasted for two to three years. He played with Steve King, headmaster at the local school, and through their common love of music and sport, they became good friends. Steve played the cello and the two spent many hours playing duets as well as performing in the local school orchestra. Alf wrote to his parents in 1958 about his new hobby:

‘The old fiddle is progressing fast and I have improved out of all recognition. I am now nearly as good as those poor blokes you hear in the streets. But I do love it! I grab the instrument at every opportunity and it is funny how quickly the room empties after I start sawing.'

He did not progress much further with the violin and he received little encouragement from his family. The violin needs to be played very well to sound acceptable, and there were some very scratchy sessions around the fireside on those winter evenings. With the veterinary practice becoming increasingly busy, it was hard to find the time to devote to his hobby and, although he enjoyed his short association with the instrument, it finally scraped to a halt in 1960.

For Alf, the 1950s were years of enjoyment and satisfaction but towards the end of that decade, a darker period was beginning. It gradually worsened, almost unnoticed, but an event in 1960 would precipitate him into the abyss of a nervous breakdown that lasted for almost two years. It would be the only period of my life when I could say I had a father I hardly knew.

Friday 8 April 1960 began happily for Alf Wight. With his friend, Guy Rob, he left Thirsk for the international football match between Scotland and England at Hampden Park in Glasgow, to which they would be accompanied by his father. These visits were enjoyable and relaxing occasions. Alf would not only have the pleasure of seeing his parents again, he would be able to talk football with Pop, always one of their favourite topics of conversation.

The letters that Pop wrote to Alf and Joan invariably began with the formalities of asking after the family, telling in a short sentence or two how he and Granny Wight were faring – the remainder consisting of long accounts of football matches, views on the state of Sunderland AFC, or his latest opinions on the England cricket team. They radiated the words of a sports fanatic, and Alf's letters to his parents, although not quite so heavily weighted, were in a similar vein. Joan would read the first couple of lines of Pop's letters, but on seeing the start of a three- or four-page report of a match between Rangers and Celtic, would then hand the rest over to her husband.

His son's visits to Glasgow were the highlight of Pop's year and they were equally enjoyed by Alf who never tired of his father's company.

But that day in 1960 was to be a tragic one. On arrival at his parents' home in Anniesland Road, Alf was horrified to see a hearse outside the door. His father had died suddenly of a heart attack while he and Guy were en route from Thirsk. Instead of enjoying the great atmosphere of an England v Scotland match, he found himself making funeral arrangements, while poor Guy Rob caught the next train home.

This unexpected and shocking experience was a body blow – one that was to have devastating consequences. He had lost someone he loved dearly and, for more than a year afterwards, his emotions would carry him downhill into a state of deep and serious depression.

My mother, Rosie and I travelled to Glasgow for Pop's funeral and I remember the look on my father's face at the Maryhill Crematorium. He appeared to be completely bewildered, bravely fighting back tears, while all around him, people, myself included, were crying at the loss
of someone we all loved. The emotional pressure on him at the time must have been incredible.

In a letter to his mother shortly after his father's death, he tried to raise her spirits while expressing his own feelings: ‘I know how he must be filling your thoughts and of the awful emptiness you feel. I feel it too, as you will know. But, you know, I feel now a kind of companionship with Pop. When something comes up about football or anything else in which we were both interested, I feel I am discussing it mentally with him. These things are all a closed book to us but what is certain is that the love and the memories never die and are a comfort to those who are left.'

It is not surprising that Pop's sudden and shocking death hit Alf so hard; there was a tremendous bond of friendship and affection between the two men. Pop's death was a blow to me, too. I was seventeen at the time, and in September of the following year was due to stay with my grandparents at Anniesland Road while I attended the Glasgow University Veterinary School. One of my greatest regrets is that Pop was not there to share my university days – but it was much sadder that he was not alive to see the wonderful achievements of his son as a writer. He would have been a very proud man indeed, and no one would have devoured his books more avidly, or appreciated the skill of James Herriot more than Pop.

He would also have been proud to watch his son receive so many tributes from all over the world. Alf, too, had regrets that Pop never had the opportunity to read his work, but he thought that there was one tribute that his father would have been particularly pleased about.

One day, more than thirty years later, at the time when his fame and popularity were at their height, he was walking with Alex Taylor and they were talking about Alf's recent distinction of being made Honorary President of Sunderland Football Club. ‘You know, Alex,' he said, ‘old Pop would have loved to see my literary success but he would have considered
this
to be my greatest achievement!'

Pop's sudden death was the catalyst for sending Alf Wight spiralling into a nervous breakdown but it was not solely responsible; he had been deteriorating emotionally for some time before that event. Nervous breakdowns can be very difficult to understand and, in his case, there were many factors involved.

In some respects, Alf was ideal ‘nervous breakdown material'. Following his recovery, people used to say to me, ‘I'm surprised that your dad had a breakdown. He always seemed so calm and never seemed to let anything worry him.' This explains a great deal. He did seem to be in control of a situation but he was a man who hid his emotions – someone who would bottle things up rather than openly discuss his feelings with others.

He was a worrier, a private man who rarely allowed his deeper thoughts to surface. He worried about Joan and her slavish attitude to housework. He worried about Rosie and me, and whether he had done enough for us. He fretted about his parents; with Pop's job in the office not always secure, would they manage to cope if he was out of work? As he observed the slow but steady disappearance of grazing land around Thirsk, he began to feel concerns not only for the future of the practice, but for that of the veterinary profession in general. In years to come, would people still be getting up at ungodly hours to milk cows or would some clever person produce artificial milk more easily and cheaply? With no capital behind him, he depended entirely on the financial success of his business. Towards the end of the 1950s, when there were some rumblings of discontent among the assistants, he took on the responsibility of dealing with them with little help from anyone else. He did not discuss any of these problems with his family; his selfless nature decreed that he shared his secret hopes and fears with no one.

One thing that haunted him throughout the latter part of the 1950s was his children's education. My sister and I were attending the local school, despite my father's fervent wish that we should receive private education. His own parents had made sacrifices to send him to a fee-paying school and, deep down, he blamed himself for failing to give us a similar opportunity.

Having privately educated us throughout our primary years at Ivy Dene school, my father had been prepared to carry on paying tuition fees throughout our higher school years, but my mother had had other ideas. She was adamant that we were to be educated in Thirsk and her argument was strengthened by the fact that he would have been hard-pressed to find the money to pay private school fees. He could have afforded it by stretching his finances to the limit, and not to do so only compounded his feelings of guilt.

All this should never have concerned him. Thirsk Grammar Modern
School, superbly run by the headmaster, my father's friend Steve King, achieved remarkable academic results for such a small school. The high standard of teaching, allied to tight discipline, ensured that Rosie and I received a wonderful education but, despite our success there, my father still had that nagging doubt; had he done all he could for us?

His veterinary colleagues, Donald Sinclair and Gordon Rae, sent their children to fee-paying schools, as did many people of means in the Thirsk area. It seemed to him that he was one of the few men of professional status who used the local school. What if we failed to achieve? Would he ever forgive himself?

He watched our education very closely and when I fell behind in my second year I remember receiving a severe lecture from him. I think that, had I not pulled myself together and improved dramatically the following year, he would have bartered his soul to send me away to school.

Our education was not the only cause of his concern for our well-being. In those days, the possession of a dialect was regarded as a stigma; it could be a hindrance to progress in one's chosen profession. As a Yorkshire boy who spent his time with other Yorkshire lads, I developed an accent – one that worried my father so much that he sent Rosie and me to elocution classes in the nearby town of Ripon. My father was convinced that it was doing me good but I hated every minute; I made no progress, and he eventually conceded defeat. Things have now changed, with the possession of a dialect, quite rightly, no longer frowned upon but, in those days, he was convinced that my Yorkshire accent would hold me back. It was just another example of his determination to do everything within his power to ensure that he gave us a good start in life.

His concerns for the welfare of others did not stop with his immediate family. Since the day he qualified from Glasgow Veterinary College in 1939, Alfred Wight had carried the burden of the belief that he owed his parents a debt he would never be able to repay. From his very first poverty-stricken days as a young veterinary surgeon, he had not only regularly sent money to his parents, but had written to them conscientiously every week as well as visiting them, without fail, several times every year. His devotion to his parents was admirable, but it had its price.

In the years following his recovery from depression, Alf would realise just how much those feelings of having to repay his parents had affected
him. I well remember the day of my graduation from the University of Glasgow Veterinary School in 1966. My mother and father, who had come up for the occasion, were staying with us in my grandmother's home in Anniesland Road. We were enjoying a celebratory drink when my grandmother said to me, ‘Jim, never forget that you owe your father a great deal. He has made sacrifices for you. You owe him everything!'

I shall never forget the expression on my father's face, nor his comments to me immediately afterwards. He led me into another room.

‘You owe me nothing! Do you understand? Absolutely nothing!' He spoke with an intensity that I found a little unnerving. Having known him so long as such a reserved and mild-mannered man, it was a new experience to hear him speak to me so directly. I did, indeed, consider that I owed him a great deal and said as much to him.

He paused for a second, without taking his eyes from mine. ‘You owe me – and your mother –
nothing!'
He said no more.

As his illness worsened throughout 1960, I noticed my father begin to exhibit subtle changes in his behaviour as he imagined his darkest fears beginning to assume threatening proportions. One of the worst was his concern that my mother was interested in other men.

I remember my mother at the time as an attractive and – when in the mood – flirtatious lady who was, without doubt, popular among my father's many friends and acquaintances. He had, from their very first meeting in 1941, been totally besotted by her, and his imagining that she could possibly forsake him for another, was, I feel sure, a factor in contributing towards his illness. I remember him being distinctly unfriendly towards a man he thought was paying too much attention to her. This was not like the man I knew.

This period, when I was in the sixth form at school, was the only time that I felt distanced from him. He was continually pressurising me to comb my hair, shave regularly, speak properly and generally behave in a manner he thought appropriate. I felt that my father was needlessly dogging my every move and I resented it. My busy days at school helped in taking my mind off the problem and he, too, was working hard in the practice, with the result that we never openly fell out, but there was, for the first time in our lives, a gulf between us. I did not fully realise it at the time but I was observing a man who was treading on the brink of a total nervous collapse, carrying the worries of the world on his shoulders.

In the early summer of 1960, when his illness appeared to be worsening by the day, Joan, on advice from the doctor, took him to York for psychiatric treatment. It was a very hard time for her. She had to cope with a husband who was undergoing a gradual personality change, but she stood by him – despite some unreasonable behaviour that was totally unlike the man that she had married. He seemed to become hypercritical of her – just as he was of me – but she bore it all with fortitude. I remember feeling great admiration for her. I was old enough to know that there was something seriously wrong with my father as I tried to imagine the strain that she was under.

As a result of the electroconvulsive therapy he was receiving, his memory began to desert him. On the occasion of Rosie's birthday, we all went to the cinema in Ripon to see a Walt Disney film,
The White Wilderness.
My father seemed to enjoy the film but when I mentioned it to him next morning over breakfast, he looked at me as if in a dream. His eyes appeared to be focused on a point several miles behind my head.

‘Film? What film?' he said. He had no recollection of the previous evening.

It has been suggested that repeated attacks of ‘undulant fever' were responsible for Alf's depression. This was contracted through treating cattle with Brucellosis, a disease that was rife in the dairy herds of Britain in those days – causing abortion and stillbirths in cows and heifers. In common with many others in his profession, Alf removed diseased afterbirths from hundreds of affected animals, which resulted in his developing, on more than one occasion, symptoms of high fever and delirium. At such times, he took to his bed for days.