The Real James Herriot

by Jim Wight

  Donald seemed to approve of the way that he was portrayed this time. We were all very relieved, especially as one scene in the film compares Siegfried with Adolf Hitler, describing him as a ‘mad sod!’ Alf seemed to be more upset about this than Donald who, after completion of the film’s shooting, threw a big party in Southwoods Hall for all the cast and several of his friends. Donald was in great form at the party, laughing and chatting with everyone. Who could have forecast the throwing of such a party when, two years earlier, he was threatening his partner with litigation?

  John Rush, the agent in charge of film and television rights at David Higham, in common with many others, always thought that the Herriot books were not ideal material from which to make a feature film and that, being episodic, they were far better suited to a television series.

  Before the making of the first film, he had tried unsuccessfully to interest television companies, but it was not until after the release of the second film that the idea for a television series was put into place. David Susskind, the American who owned the right to produce any spin-off series following the films, eventually sold his interest to the BBC and, in 1977, a new group of actors assembled in the Yorkshire Dales. James Herriot’s stories were to be filmed yet again, but this time, they were to be beamed into the homes of millions.

  The books and films had made the name of James Herriot famous but the television series, ‘All Creatures Great and Small’, turbocharged his popularity. It was after this series that the number of tourists visiting Thirsk rocketed to unbelievable proportions. His famous characters had now infiltrated people’s sitting-rooms and they liked what they saw.

  Once again, Alf took a back seat when it came to being involved in the production. He approved the scripts – many of which followed the storylines of the books closely – but nothing more. He was quite content just to pay regular visits into the Dales to watch the actors at work. Jack Watkinson, the vet in Leyburn, acted as veterinary advisor in the Dales, while, with much of the studio work being shot in the Midlands, my father’s old friend, Eddie Straiton, provided the professional expertise.

  The part of James Herriot was played by Christopher Timothy. Up until this time, he was not well known to the public but it took only one or two episodes on the television to propel him to stardom.

  Chris Timothy developed a lasting respect for Alf Wight, a man he felt proud to have played. He was diffident about meeting him for the first time but, after his first introduction on the film set in the Dales, was soon put at his ease.

  While fishing in Swaledale one day, and sensing a tap on his shoulder, he turned round to face a man he did not know.

  ‘Are you Chris Timothy?’ asked the stranger.

  ‘I am,’ replied Chris.

  The man continued in a quiet Scottish burr, ‘Well … I am your alter ego.’

  Chris liked him from that first meeting and he never lost his affection for my father, whom he described many years later, as a ‘private, totally approachable, totally delightful, up-front guy’.

  For their part, of all the stars Alf and Joan met during those intoxicating years, Chris has been the one who has kept in touch with the family more closely than any other. He continues to visit my mother whenever he is nearby, and often sends letters from abroad whenever his acting engagements take him further afield. Chris, who has appeared on many factual programmes about James Herriot, has been incredibly supportive of anything that has involved the man to whom he feels he owes so much. His role as the famous vet, one which gave an enormous boost to his career, is something he has never forgotten.

  I shall always remember his unflinching cooperation when asked to speak at my father’s Memorial Service in 1995, together with the wonderful performance he gave when reading the passage from Vet in Harness about that great composite character, ‘Biggins’. Chris was pleased we had chosen that particular episode since he had become friends with the actor who played Biggins in the series, who had himself sadly died prior to the Memorial Service.

  If Chris Timothy was a comparative unknown before assuming the mantle of James Herriot, the actor who played Siegfried – Robert Hardy – most certainly was not. He was already an established and much-respected performer and, as well as having experience as a Shakespearean actor to his credit, his versatility was such that he had stepped expertly into the roles of such diverse personalities as Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini.

  I remember my first meeting with Robert Hardy. One afternoon in the surgery in 1977, I was surprised to see a figure in a white coat, counting tablets into a bottle beneath the disconcerting stare of Donald Sinclair. Seconds later, Donald seized the bottle.

  ‘No, no, Tim! I’ve already told you! These tablets are for dogs only! You never give these to cats!’ I wondered who this unknown, brow-beaten employee of the practice could be? I looked more closely at him. ‘Good heavens, it’s Robert Hardy!’ I said aloud.

  His smiling face turned towards me and Donald introduced us. ‘I am very pleased to meet you,’ he said. ‘Call me Tim. That is how I am known to my friends.’ I took an instant liking to him.

  With filming having only recently begun, he was spending a few days at Southwoods Hall with Donald to give him the opportunity of studying his character. It proved, not surprisingly, to be a most illuminating experience and his time was obviously well spent because his portrayal of Siegfried, a character whom he came to love dearly, was brilliant. Although he bore no physical resemblance to the real man, he captured his impulsive character perfectly and his performance passed the severest possible test – the approval of the Yorkshire farmers who knew the real Siegfried so well. ‘By! That feller teks auld Sinclair off well!’ was a cry that I heard countless times.

  Donald and Robert Hardy became the best of friends over the years but, true to form, Donald did not approve of his television portrayal. Almost twenty years later, in 1996, I had the pleasure of seeing Tim Hardy on the top of the White Horse Bank, near Thirsk. He had come to open officially the White Horse Preservation Society, an organisation dedicated to the upkeep of the famous White Horse that had been cut into the hillside above the village of Kilburn over a hundred years ago. He gave a short but revealing speech in which he reminisced about his role as Siegfried.

  He had approached Donald one day and said, ‘You have never really approved of my portrayal of you, have you?’

  Upon receiving the predictable response, he had countered, ‘Very well, who would you have liked to have played the part?’

  ‘Oh, someone with manners. Someone like Rex Harrison!’ Donald had unhesitatingly replied.

  ‘From that moment on,’ said Tim, ‘I knew I was a dead duck!’

  Robert Hardy’s feelings for his part in the series are revealed in a letter to Alf dated New Year 1978:

  ‘The first of our interpretations of your marvellous work goes out on Sunday 8th and I hope, and hope, you will like it … the joy that I’ve already had in being part of it all is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced.’

  Carol Drinkwater, who played Helen, and Peter Davison as Tristan, were ideal in their parts. Carol brought a lively sexiness to her part and Peter stepped most convincingly into the role of the likeable but feckless Tristan.

  Alf thoroughly enjoyed the series. The producer, Bill Sellers, ensured that the stunning scenery was displayed at its best throughout and, in choosing the village of Askrigg in Wensleydale, he brought the fictitious town of Darrowby to life. This village was certainly in Alf’s mind when he originally set his books in the Dales back in the late 1960s; the grey buildings surrounded by the fells, with the dry-stone walls snaking down from the high ground, are straight from the pages of James Herriot’s books. After the series began – the first episode was shown on 8 January 1978 – thousands of tourists invaded Askrigg and Wensleydale. They may have been a nuisance to some, but they certainly boosted the economy of the Dales for many years.

  Another feature of the series was the excellent acting from the e
xtras. Some of the farming characters were brilliantly represented and, as Alf said, ‘could have stepped straight out of the old farm buildings that I used to know’.

  Johnny Byrne, the scriptwriter, did a most skilful job in transposing the writing of James Herriot to the spoken word, and many of the scenes rang with authenticity. One of Alf’s favourite episodes concerned the vets’ uphill struggle in extracting money from some of the old farmers. He said to me, the day following the screening of the episode, ‘Did you see that one, last night? It brought back a few memories, I can tell you!’

  For many, the series became addictive viewing. An extract from the Western Daily Press, dated 30 January 1978, illustrates the high regard in which it was held:

  Churchgoers in the village of Lowick, Cumbria, have been blessed with the chance to worship all things bright and beautiful – and then go home to ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. For the tiny Lakeland church has been given a special dispensation to hold its Sunday evening service earlier than usual so the congregation can get home in time to watch its favourite television programme.

  Since the series started, there had been a decline in the numbers attending Evensong and those that turned up complained of missing the start of the programme.

  Such was their popularity, forty-one episodes were shown over the following five years, and they very quickly became compulsive viewing for a huge proportion of the population, with estimates running up to 14 million viewers.

  Alf’s own opinion of the television series appeared in the Yorkshire Evening Post in 1981:

  Not only did it capture the essence of what I had tried to say, but also the central characters were absolutely splendid … they were us come to life. I watched it faithfully.

  Human nature being what it is, I probably watched Chris Timothy a little more closely than I did the others. I always saw myself as the rather diffident figure – not exactly a ‘grey’ figure but not a particularly colourful one – caught between two flamboyant, thoroughly zestful characters. Christopher Timothy perfectly captured that air of diffidence.

  James Herriot had, by the early 1980s, become not just a famous international name, he had become an industry. He had sold millions of books in hardback and many millions more in paperback. The television series had made his name a household word and was transmitted to countries all over the world – right through the 1980s with repeats into the following decade. The area of North Yorkshire that he had made famous had assumed a new name; it had become known as ‘Herriot Country’, with tourists visiting Thirsk and the Yorkshire Dales in their thousands. With his books having been translated into so many languages, fans came from all corners of the world.

  Alf, while having to admit that he greatly enjoyed meeting so many people from overseas, preferred to spend most of his time away from the spotlight. Not only had he bought, in 1977, his house in Thirlby where he and Joan were secreted away from the thousands of prying eyes but, in 1978, he acquired a cottage in the village of West Scrafton – a cluster of grey stone houses and farms, lying on the southern side of Coverdale and surrounded by wild fells and moorland. It was here, where he could merge into obscurity among his beloved Yorkshire Dales, that he found total peace – where, in the morning, he would awake to a silence broken only by ‘the sound of the bleating of sheep or the cry of the curlew’.

  He and Joan stayed in the West Scrafton cottage regularly, in all weathers and at all times of the year. Here, he would walk his dogs endless miles over the green tracks while drinking in the sweet, clear air of the high dales. There was nowhere he would have rather been.

  It was an idyllic spot in the summer, but in the darker months of the year, West Scrafton could show a different side to its nature. One late October afternoon, he was walking his dogs along the road towards the neighbouring hamlet of Swineside. His head was lowered to protect himself from the driving rain, screaming in from the surrounding moors. On the road, he met one of the local farmers, surrounded by cows and elegantly attired in a torn mackintosh, around which was an ancient hessian sack held in place with a piece of string. The road was running with water and mud.

  The farmer paused in the lee of one of the stone buildings before raising his weather-beaten face to Alf. He shouted above the noise of the wind. ‘Afternoon, Mr Wight!’

  ‘It’s not much of a day!’ yelled Alf in response.

  ‘Nay, you’re right!’ continued the farmer, looking around him at the desolate scene. ‘You’re ’avin’ a bit o’ holiday up ’ere, eh?’

  ‘Yes, just having a nice break from the practice.’

  The farmer scrutinised the damp figure before him. Everyone in the village knew who he was; they all knew he had the means to spend his holidays on sun-drenched beaches in exotic locations. The farmer had spent almost his entire life working in the village, and a hard life it had been. Many people are entranced by the beautiful scenery of the Yorkshire Dales, but those who try to make a living out of the place can sometimes take a different view.

  The farmer looked again at the rippling puddles in the road, the rapidly darkening sky and the filthy wet dogs standing expectantly at Alf’s feet. He looked him steadily in the face before turning to set off after the mass of cows. A puzzled look passed over his features as he paused for a final word. ‘Why der yer come ’ere?’

  Whilst not really enjoying the massive publicity that surrounded him, Alf was, in fact, making matters worse for himself; he was still seated in front of the television with his typewriter. He did it for neither fame nor fortune; he simply loved writing. With lists of ‘headings’ secreted away in the drawers of his desk, there was still plenty of material.

  Between the years of 1978 and 1981, two more books appeared. One of these was to sell more copies in hardback than any of his previous six and was largely responsible for the never-ending coachloads of tourists pouring into his part of England. This book – one that he almost never wrote – was destined to become his greatest best-seller. It was called James Herriot’s Yorkshire.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  One day in 1978, my father called me to his house in Thirlby. ‘Jim,’ he said, ‘I want to ask you something.’ I always knew when he was going to mention something important; he spoke slowly and quietly with a slight trace of uncertainty.

  ‘Michael Joseph would like to produce a picture book of those parts of Yorkshire I have made famous through my writing. It would be accompanied by a text, written by me. They want to call it James Herriot’s Yorkshire.’

  His eyes were now focused directly on mine as he continued. ‘What do you think of the idea? Do you think that my words alongside photographs would interest people?’

  I felt somewhat flattered that this established best-selling author valued my opinion, but I was not really surprised. Although not without confidence in his own ability, he continually sought suggestions from others – maintaining until the end of his life that he was simply ‘an amateur at the writing game’.

  I thought for a few moments. ‘No, Dad. I don’t think that it’s a good idea at all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why should someone from, say, California, want to look at some pokey little corner of Swaledale?’ I replied confidently. ‘These places bring back great memories for us, but I can’t see the fascination in them for anyone else. Forget it. It won’t sell.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ He lapsed into thought and dropped the subject.

  He must have listened to me because he told his publishers that he had serious misgivings about the project. However, their persuasive arguments finally won the day, and Alf agreed to go ahead. This beautifully illustrated book, the inspired idea of Alan Brooke, then editorial director at Michael Joseph – and whose concept received wholehearted support from Alf’s editor Anthea Joseph – went on to become a mega best-seller, far exceeding all his previous books. It became the ‘essential companion’ for the thousands of fans from
all over the world who flocked to see those ‘pokey little corners’ of Yorkshire that I had confidently predicted would hold no interest for them.

  The dubious quality of my advice was emphatically illustrated some sixteen years later. In 1995, four months after my father’s death, Rosie and I took part in a BBC television programme about outdoor activities called ‘Tracks’. Part of this weekly programme described those walks that were particular favourites of selected celebrities and, for James Herriot’s favourite, we had chosen to film the programme in the upper reaches of Swaledale.

  This wild and unspoilt area figures largely in the Yorkshire book. He loved it for its beauty and loneliness but we were not alone for long on that occasion. I was astonished to see a coach disgorge a throng of American tourists who strode purposefully past us, many of them clutching their copy of James Herriot’s Yorkshire! Sixteen years after publication, it still held its fascination for so many of his fans.

  This book was published in 1979 and is totally factual. Such was its success that it became the trailblazer for many look-alike publications, including Wynford Vaughan-Thomas’s Wales, Poldark’s Cornwall, Catherine Cookson’s Northumberland and the highly popular series of books by the enigmatic fellwalker, Alfred Wainwright. My father loved reading Wainwright’s books; he wrote simply, but with great feeling, for the high country of the British Isles, especially the Lake District and Scotland, and I feel sure that had he and my father met, they would have had much in common.

  The superb photographs in James Herriot’s Yorkshire were taken by the freelance photographer, Derry Brabbs; it was his first book and its tremendous success was to make his name. He was to go on and illustrate many more of the books that would follow in its wake, including the Wainwright series.

  Derry was chosen in a somewhat bizarre fashion. Nowadays, photographic agencies would be asked to submit the portfolios of their major clients but not so in 1978. Michael Joseph decided that a Yorkshire-based photographer would be best, for obvious reasons: not only would he or she be close at hand, but would already understand the vagaries of the Yorkshire weather. The firm’s managing director, Victor Morrison – who, with his considerable flair for design, oversaw the book’s production – had a secretary whose husband was a freelance photographer. He was consulted and suggested that a simple way to start would be to check the Yellow Pages directories for Yorkshire, under the heading PHOTOGRAPHERS, and see what emerged. Victor Morrison did just that and compiled a list. Derry Brabbs, having the luck to have a surname starting with B, was approached first of all – and the search for a photographer ended there.