The Real James Herriot

by Jim Wight

  John was not only a competent veterinary surgeon; he was a likeable man and was popular with the customers. For Alf, those years of the early 1950s were happy ones. He and John became great friends and an atmosphere of laughter and good humour pervaded the practice. It was a period of prosperity, with their profession undergoing massive change as agriculture prospered and farmers became more educated. From the veterinary surgeons’ side, high standards were expected – an ideal situation for a young, keen man like John Crooks.

  John stayed in Thirsk for almost three years. He left in May 1954 to set up his own practice in Beverley, eventually achieving the distinction of becoming President of the British Veterinary Association in 1983. From his exalted position within the profession, however, he never forgot his humble beginnings in Thirsk, looking back on those days with Alf and Donald as some of the happiest of his life. His two employers gave him sound advice and tremendous support, so vital to a young person taking the first difficult steps in his chosen career. He felt so strongly about his time in Thirsk that when he left, he took with him a bottle of ‘air’ from 23 Kirkgate, hoping that it would infect his new practice with the refreshing and good-natured atmosphere he had enjoyed there.

  John and his wife, Heather, remained great friends with the Wights, Alf becoming godfather to their first-born child, Annette. Many years later, when John became President of the BVA, he asked Alf to speak at the inaugural ceremony, at which Alf recalled his memories of John as t’yoong man’, as he was called by the farmers. That was when Alf Wight, no longer the youngest man in the practice, suddenly realised that he was getting older.

  The luxury of having an assistant transformed Alf’s quality of life. Having savoured a taste of a more civilised existence, but still seeing his wife slaving in 23 Kirkgate, he became more determined than ever to get his family out of the big, cold house. On his many visits to the Yorkshire farms, he had been deeply impressed with the farm kitchens. They were not only warm, with fires or big cooking ranges dominating the room, but they seemed to be the nerve centre of the house where everything good seemed to happen. For a long time, he had dreamed of a comfortable house with a big, warm kitchen, he and his family seated cosily around the table. It was a vision so different from the spartan, icy surroundings they had endured for so long.

  Although he had earned well for the past five years, Alf had saved very little. Quite apart from the cost of simply feeding and clothing his family, he had taken on additional financial responsibilities; I received private education at Ivy Dene Preparatory School while my mother had enjoyed the help of some busy little women in her uphill task of keeping the house in order. Having begun his professional career with no money behind him, Alf faced the task of looking for a new home with virtually no capital to his name.

  Undeterred, he soon had his eye on a house in Stockton Road in Thirsk. Pleasantly situated and just the right size for the family, it was exactly what he was looking for. It was due to be auctioned in the Golden Fleece Hotel and, armed with positive thoughts and very little money, Alf attended the auction with a fierce determination that the house was going to be his. It was an experience he would never forget. The bidding rose to more than £3000, a sum he could only dream about, but with the sweat standing out on his forehead, he doggedly persisted in bidding, so desperate was he to get his family out of the cold, stone-flagged Kirkgate house. Finally, with the tension in the room rising by the second, and with only him and one other contestant left in the bidding, Alf could take no more. His iron resolve suddenly evaporated and he conceded defeat. He left the Golden Fleece a drained and beaten man.

  The experience left its mark on him. As he was leaving the hotel, he glanced in a mirror but hardly recognised the ghastly visage framed within it – a gaunt, pale shadow of the man who had strode into the auction with such high hopes. He felt one hundred years old. This incident remained so firmly in his memory that he recalled it in Every Living Thing. How would he have felt had he been able to look more than thirty years into the future, when the sum of £3000 would be small change to him?

  The loss of that house, in fact, turned out to be providential. Very soon afterwards, and after many hours of bartering, he bought a plot of land in Topcliffe Road on which he had his own house built. This house, costing £1000 less than the other, was not only a better house, but was one built to his and Joan’s specification. With his stronger standing in the practice having enabled him to obtain a mortgage for £2000, he could now look forward to some comfort for the family in the years ahead. He called his new house, into which we moved in the winter of 1953, Rowardennan, after a favoured and beautiful spot by the side of Loch Lomond. It would be our home for the next twenty-five years.

  I remember the day we moved in, my overriding memory being one of draught-free rooms and wall-to-wall carpeting. There was no central heating but, compared to 23 Kirkgate, it was the warmest, cosiest nest imaginable. The kitchen was Alf’s greatest joy and was dominated by an Aga cooker, an impressive, solid bank of warmth that he would worship for the next twenty-five years. Alf, the rumpled figure in his dressing-gown, as he clutched his morning cup of tea and his toast and Marmite, would have reason to bless that Aga for many winters to come.

  1953 was a year of happiness and achievement for Alf. He now had his own house, both his children were being educated in an excellent primary school, and the practice was doing well enough to support an assistant. His quality of life had taken a turn for the better.

  One sad incident, however, occurred shortly following the move to Rowardennan; our little dog, Danny, was killed on the main road outside the house. He was, by then, fourteen years old, with a hard body and a heart that beat with the regular, strong rhythm of that of a young dog, but his one physical infirmity was deafness. He never heard the car that ended his life but his death was mercifully swift. We had regarded Danny as indestructible but the combination of unfamiliar surroundings and his inability to hear traffic was his undoing.

  I remember my father coming into our bedroom to tell Rosie and me that Danny had met his end. We cried unashamedly. He had been regarded as a member of the family and it took us weeks to fully realise that our bushy little friend was no longer trotting by our sides.

  Alf quickly realised that to travel to the farms without some canine company in the car was unthinkable, so he did what he always told his customers to do following the loss of a pet – he found another. Donald was running a pack of beagles at the time, in which there was one very small bitch that was regarded as the runt of the pack. As she had difficulty in keeping up with the rest, Donald was only too pleased to present his partner with a replacement for Danny. This appealing little creature, whom we called Dinah, thus became the second dog to travel the long miles at Alf’s side.

  Dinah was the opposite of her predecessor; her life revolved around the food bowl. After demolishing her meal within seconds, she was always ready for more and she utilised her greatest asset to get it. This irresistible little hound had a sweet face with liquid brown eyes which, once turned upon us, totally demolished our stern resolve not to overfeed her. She invariably joined us at mealtimes and, with my grandmother, Lal, being the most vulnerable to Dinah’s charms, a steady supply of juicy titbits would drop down to the strategically positioned little dog. This high living resulted in Dinah becoming very fat, despite the regular exercise she received while out with Alf. He repeatedly exhorted his mother-in-law to stop feeding Dinah, but the old lady was completely under her spell, resulting in Alf Wight, the vet, having to live with the ignominy of owning one of the fattest dogs in Thirsk.

  Dinah, who walked for miles with us, was regarded, like Danny, as a member of the family and we were terribly upset when she died in 1963 at the age of eleven, through inadvertently consuming some rat poison; her insatiable appetite had contributed to her downfall.

  James Herriot wrote about his first canine passenger in his fourth book, Vet in Harness, referring to him as a beagle named Sam.

&nb
sp; Having him with me added so much to the intermissions I granted myself on my daily rounds. Whereas in offices and factories they had tea breaks, I just stopped the car and stepped out into the splendour which was always at hand and walked for a spell down hidden lanes, through woods, or as today, along one of the grassy tracks which ran over the high tops.

  This thing which I had always done had a new meaning now. Anybody who has ever walked a dog knows the abiding satisfaction which comes from giving pleasure to a beloved animal and the sight of the little form trotting ahead of me lent a depth which had been missing before.

  Sam the beagle is an example of James Herriot’s habit of making a composite character out of one or two others. Sam is, in fact, Danny and Dinah rolled into one.

  Such was his feeling for the canine race, Alf never understood how anyone could live without a dog, let alone walk without one. One day, he and I were exercising Dinah along the side of the Codbeck, a popular route with the dog walkers of Thirsk. A man whom neither of us recognised strode by, whereupon my father said to me, ‘That’s a suspicious-looking character! I wonder what he’s up to?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked. The man looked fairly normal to me. ‘What’s suspicious about him?’

  He gave the retreating figure another glance and smiled. ‘He hasn’t got a dog!’

  All good things come to an end, and in the spring of 1954, Alf was very sorry to learn that John Crooks was leaving to establish his own practice in another part of Yorkshire. He would see John depart, to be replaced by another young veterinary surgeon – a pattern that would be repeated many times across the portals of 23 Kirkgate.

  James Herriot talks about only three veterinary assistants in his books – John Crooks (to whom he gave his real name), Calum Buchanan (real name, Brian Nettleton) and Carmody (who is described as a student in the third book, Let Sleeping Vets Lie but who, in fact, was an assistant named Oliver Murphy). There were, of course, many others. Over a period of forty-eight years to the present day, upwards of thirty young people have worked as assistants in the practice – all providing a rich variety of personalities.

  James Herriot writes about his sadness at the departure of John Crooks and how this was tempered by the arrival of the unforgettable Calum, complete with his badgers and an assorted menagerie. Brian Nettleton, the real Calum, did not actually arrive until 1957 and there were, in fact, four other assistants in Thirsk in the meantime – men whom Alf never mentioned in his books.

  The assistant who followed John was a young man called Jim Chad-wick. Had my father ever written another book, he may well have figured in it. While researching my father’s life, I came across some work he had put on disk for future reference, among which there is a great deal of material about Jim.

  Jim Chadwick was a handsome young man who soon became a great favourite with the ladies. He was not only handsome but charming, and turned out to be a real asset to the practice. He was a very good veterinary surgeon but in his first few weeks lacked confidence, continually appealing to Alf to extricate him from sticky situations. He told me, years later, how grateful he was for all the valuable support he received during those first uncertain weeks.

  Alf did not mind; he preferred to have a young man who was willing to listen and learn. I remember another assistant who adopted a different attitude. Believing he knew everything, he refused to heed advice from his more experienced employers. The result was some disastrous mistakes on the farms which gave Alf and Donald many sleepless nights.

  My father’s old friend Eddie Straiton, for whom I worked for fifteen months, had little time for newly-qualified assistants who thought they knew it all. He had a forthright way of expressing his views. ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong with such people,’ he said to me one day. ‘They don’t know enough to know they know bugger all!’

  Jim Chadwick, however, had the sense to know that he had a great deal to learn. I asked him to tell me about his time in practice at Thirsk.

  ‘I learned more in six months with Alf Wight and Donald Sinclair than I did in five years at university. The practice of Sinclair and Wight was a model which, in later life, I have always sought to achieve. I have had two people that I have tried to emulate. One is J. G. Wright, Dean of the Faculty of Liverpool Veterinary School, the other is Alf Wight.’

  Jim wrote about one incident which smacks of life in Skeldale House with the incomparable Siegfried.

  ‘I never saw Alf Wight put out but Donald Sinclair had his moods. I can remember the dressing down I received when I dropped a glass syringe which, of course, broke. Imagine my delight when a few days later Mr Sinclair did the same thing. I did not think it politic to comment though I did see the twinkle in Alf’s eye.’

  With the TB Testing work increasing, the work load became such that another assistant was appointed – Ken Hibbitt from Bristol, who had seen practice with Alf and Donald as a student. He arrived in November 1954 and he and Jim Chadwick became great friends. His arrival meant that Alf could now dispense with night work completely – an almost incomprehensible luxury. The early 1950s were some of the happiest days of his life. As well as having the pleasure of spending time with his family, he was working with men he liked, while doing a job he found fascinating and rewarding.

  Ken also wrote to me about his time working in Thirsk.

  ‘Alf was a great person to see practice with and he was equally good with the new graduate starting a professional career. He did not restrict his young colleagues solely to TB Testing and dehorning and other routine jobs but gave them an opportunity to visit the more interesting cases without interference. On the other hand, he was always available for discussion and pleased to offer advice. If an animal died, he was sympathetic and attempted to boost the confidence of his disappointed colleague. I well remember losing a cow suffering with fat necrosis within the first few months in Thirsk and being reassured by Alf that I could have done no more. He pointed out that he could use a small field to bury all his failures.’

  Although the two young men relished their time in Thirsk, they had to work very hard. They received only one weekend off in five, with out-of-hours work extremely common. When on call, they would be almost certain to be on the road.

  Alf knew that Ken would not remain in Thirsk. He had the brain of an academic with an ambition to take up a post in teaching and research. He left in February 1956 for Bristol University, where he lectured in Biochemistry, and attained a Doctorate of Philosophy in metabolic disease.

  Ken’s departure meant that another assistant had to be found and, in that same month, Oliver Murphy arrived. I am sure that, should his name be mentioned to the older clients of our practice, they would not remember him at all, yet he is one of the few assistants upon whom James Herriot bases a story.

  Oliver, a serious-minded young man who was also bound for an academic future, stayed only four months in the practice. Although having little idea of how to handle farm stock, and becoming involved in some frightful rodeos, he was a pleasant young man and the farmers liked him. They liked him because he was a trier; he never gave up. Alf used this to effect in his books, describing Oliver as ‘Carmody’ the student – the young man who stubbornly hung on to a rope attached to a rampant beast while being towed through oceans of manure.

  Alf loved to hear funny anecdotes from his colleagues, and Oliver, despite his serious attitude to life, was not without a sense of humour. He returned from a farm one day, plastered in mud after a torrid session trying to catch some wild bullocks. He had met with little success chasing his patients around a fold yard, finally hanging by his legs from a beam with a lasso in an attempt to snare an animal as it thundered past! The huge beasts were all fired up and, had Oliver succeeded in catching one, he would probably never have been seen again. After a few futile minutes hanging upside down, he got a taste of some dry Yorkshire humour.

  The farmer appeared beneath him and looked up into his face. ‘Mr Wight doesn’t do it like this!’ he remarked, calmly lig
hting his pipe.

  Oliver was only a transient assistant but he was in Thirsk long enough to leave a strong imprint in the mind of the future James Herriot.

  Late in 1956, some dark clouds began to gather. Jim Chadwick wanted to remain in Thirsk but, as a married man with responsibilities, he needed some security. Alf liked him so much that he fervently wished he could make him a partner but, as Donald would not agree, Jim had no alternative but to leave, which he did in January 1957. I was only fourteen years old at the time but I remember how depressed my father was at losing his colleague – someone he felt he could have worked with happily for the rest of his life. He was in low spirits for many days but soon realised that life goes on, and he prepared himself for a fresh face, a new man to instruct in the ways of Sinclair and Wight.

  Only days after Jim’s departure, Alf stood on the platform of Thirsk railway station where he beheld Jim’s successor alighting from the train. He stared disbelievingly at the tall figure with the black moustache and the dark, flashing eyes – a badger draped over his shoulder and a huge dog striding by his side. He had always known the veterinary profession to be wonderfully varied, as the old principal at the Glasgow Veterinary College, Dr Whitehouse, had promised – and this spectacle certainly confirmed it.

  Brian Nettleton had arrived. Alf reckoned that the new assistant was going to be an interesting one if nothing else. He was right. Brian was to provide his employers with rich memories that would be reborn in the guise of ‘Calum Buchanan’, a character who would enthral millions of television viewers many years later.

  I doubt that a single one of the older farmers in our practice has ever forgotten Brian Nettleton – ‘t’ vet wi’t badger’. Brian was a unique character but also a very fine veterinary surgeon, one of the finest to walk the corridors of 23 Kirkgate. He was not only a big, strong man who impressed the clients with his no-nonsense, practical approach; he was also a skilled surgeon who could perform delicate operations upon all species. He was meticulously clean and his neat wounds always healed rapidly. He had a wonderful rapport with animals, a great asset for a man in his profession. This impressed the clients, many of whom looked upon him as someone approaching a ‘Dr Doolittle’ character.