The Real James Herriot (15 page)

An extraordinary personality he may have been, but Alf enjoyed every moment of his company. As well as sharing a similar sense of humour, the two men enjoyed other common interests. They spent many evenings escorting young ladies to the cinema or to dances, and they both loved the atmosphere of a friendly public house where numerous pints of beer would be consumed.

It was when in the company of the foaming brew that Brian really came into his own. Brian remained a dedicated beer drinker until the final years of his life and, for a smallish man, it was amazing how much he could put away. In all the years Alf knew him, he rarely seemed the worse for wear following a night at his favourite pastime. As a beer drinker, even as a young man when he and Alf were enjoying their nights of alcoholic revelry, he had the assurance born of years of practice.

Both Alf and Brian had very fertile imaginations which they put to full use, roaring with laughter as they fantasised about Thirsk and the surrounding area. The town has a small, meandering waterway, the
Codbeck, running through it, and the two young men would imagine it as a great river, with Thirsk, a thriving seaport, at its mouth. The opening of one of Brian's letters began, ‘And as the fully-rigged sailing ship
Cryptorchid
sailed into the harbour …' When recalling the story, Alf could get no further than that first line. The high land at the top of Sutton Bank, a part of the practice that Brian regarded as ‘The Lost World', was another focus for their imagination. The two men dreamed up images of swaying columns of vets and sundry other people trekking across the barren landscape on their way to a dinosaur in distress. A letter written by Alf to Brian, when Brian was in the Army Veterinary Corps in India in August 1944, reveals how much he missed his company, as well as referring to the fantasies the two men shared together:

How now, old China! I hereby take up my pen to write to you which is more than you did when I was languishing in the R.A.F. but, as you see, I am still the sweet natured and forgiving youth you knew of old!

The old town is much as usual, but I confess life is not the merrier for your absence. Hancock, the new ‘horse leech', acquitted himself well on his first visit to Cold Kirby. He was called to a crop-bound pterodactyl and severe downfall of the udder in a dinosaur. Some of the natives with blow pipes peppered him rather severely on his journey but he won through, left his gross of U.C.M.s, and returned with great credit.

We had an excellent Gymkhana more recently in aid of the Red Cross and some of the results of the contests were very interesting. Alan and ‘Leedle Jas' [Brian's pseudonym for me] finished first in the three-legged race for teething infants while in the married man's egg and spoon race, Donald carried a magnificent egg and won a popular victory. Myra Hugill was a game second in the septaguanarians' hundred yards dash and the gents' bicycle and sack of potatoes trundle was, of course, a gift for Jim Barley.

Here we must end, old comrade. Try to send a line south of the border down Sowerby way.

Yours aye,

Alf.

Brian certainly found something to laugh about every day but there was one occasion that stands out above all the others – one that reduced the young man to a helpless, weeping shell. It was the day that Donald's dogs chased the local dustbin men out of the old garden at 23 Kirkgate.
Alf recounted this incident to his family many times and, in fact, wrote it down, but before James Herriot was ‘born', and the story was never published. The two brothers in the story were called not Siegfried and Tristan, but Edward and Henry.

On another peaceful August afternoon, Henry and I were sitting in the lounge waiting for the phone to ring. The french windows were open and, outside, the lawns and rockery and flowers slept in the sunshine. At our feet lay the dogs, draped over each other and breathing heavily. Then, we noticed the dustbin men coming through the little door at the far end of the garden.

The dustbin men had always fascinated Henry and me. There was one very tall, thin, lugubrious one, a very small, sad looking one and a fat one who always wore a black beret pulled down over his ears. We never saw any of them smile and they never seemed to speak to each other.

But the most striking thing about them was the slow pace at which they moved. The first time we saw them, we decided that one or all of them must be ill, so snail-like was their progression down the garden path. The tall and the short one used to appear first at the top of the garden. The fat one always walked behind. They would trail with incredible slowness down the path, heads down, unspeaking. They would disappear into the little yard where the bins were and reappear after an interval with the tall and the short one carrying a bin between them, dragging it listlessly along at arm's length. Behind would be the fat one, carrying a box or some other small article of loose rubbish. The sorrowful procession would then shuffle painfully, foot by foot, up the path until it disappeared through the far door. After a minute or two, they would reappear, deployed in the same order and carrying the empty bin. Then they would start their weary journey back to the yard, dragging languid feet, their eyes fixed to the ground in hopeless resignation. When they gained the yard, they would repeat the process with another bin.

The garden path is a long one, all of eighty yards and dead straight. The high wall borders it on one side, and on the other lie the lawns, two tall apple trees and the vegetable garden. It always took a long time for the dustbin men to walk the full length of it and I suppose this may have had something to do with their disconsolate appearance.

On this hot afternoon, they seemed to be going even more slowly than usual and Henry and I watched, spellbound, as they laboriously made their way towards us. They had travelled about three quarters of the way and were just about to turn into the yard when the lurcher, Joe, spotted them. Some small noise had awakened him and he lifted a sleepy head, but at the sight of
the dustbin men, his aspect changed suddenly. His neck stiffened and his head reared up, alert and watchful. The hairs along his back began to rise and a deep growl rumbled in his throat. The trailing, shuffling group seemed to hold a strange menace for Joe. Without taking his eyes away from them he rose slowly to his feet, and the other dogs, who were augmented by a waddling little Scottie and a large, long-haired animal of doubtful parentage, stirred into wakefulness.

Everything happened rapidly. Joe walked to the open french window with a stiff gait, every hair on his back and neck erect and bristling. His lips flickered back from his teeth and with a tremendous baying howl, he hurtled out onto the lawn, closely followed by the other five dogs in a solid mass. I can only imagine how those poor men must have felt when, out of nowhere, in the sunlit peace of the old garden, they suddenly saw this screaming horde bearing down on them. I must say this: they showed not the slightest sign of hesitation or indecision at this critical moment. In less than one second they had dropped the empty bin and were legging it back up the path like Olympic sprinters.

This electrifying transformation seemed to paralyse our faculties and we stared, open mouthed, at the scene. The tall, thin man got off to the best start and went away with his arms working like pistons. It was soon apparent, though, that his energy was being largely dissipated by faulty leg action. He had very long legs and he ran in an extraordinary high-stepping manner, his knees seeming to reach his chin. The little man had a whirlwind style, throwing his arms across his body and tossing his head about and taking tiny, rapid steps which made his legs look like a flickering blur. The real stylist of the three was the fat man. He set off with a beautiful, slightly rolling lope, his body straight and his arms moving in the classical manner. His pace over the first twenty yards was a revelation but he was obviously lacking in stamina and, his action becoming laboured, he began to fall behind. He showed remarkable resource here because, looking back and seeing the baying pack almost on his heels, he swung himself effortlessly into the branches of one of the apple trees.

It was a wonderful effort deserving of the highest praise and served not only to save his own skin, but also to divert the pursuit momentarily from his friends. Joe faltered in his stride and the other dogs, coming up at terrific speed, knocked him over. For about three seconds there was a snarling, fighting heap and then they sorted themselves out and went after the other two men. These latter were still going well with never a backward look, all their faculties intent upon their goal – the little green door at the top. It did not seem they
could possibly make it. The dogs, with Joe in the van and the little Scottie bringing up the rear, were closing the gap at an alarming speed.

But over the last few yards the two runners made a supreme effort and stepped up their pace by the vital fraction. For a sickening moment it seemed they would jam together in the doorway, but then they were through with the door banged behind them and the dogs leaping up at it and howling in thwarted rage.

I ran up the garden to rescue the fat man up the tree. Henry did not come with me; he was lying on the floor, pulling at his collar and making strange, moaning sounds. By yelling savagely and throwing stones, I managed to get the dogs rounded up and locked safely behind the french windows.

I then, apprehensively, approached the apple tree. The fat man was slowly climbing down. He wheezed and groaned and when he gained the ground he leant back against the trunk of the tree gasping for air. He said not a word in reply to my stammered apologies. After a minute he pulled his black beret more firmly down over his ears and tottered painfully up the path and through the door. I could not recognise him as the lissom athlete of a short time ago.

This lively little interlude was followed by a problem that persisted for several weeks. The dustbin men, not surprisingly, had no desire to revisit the old garden and the refuse in the back yard soon assumed mountainous proportions. Donald eventually solved the dilemma by firmly pressing a pound note into one of the dustbin men's hands outside the Black Bull in Thirsk, with the assurance that his pack of dogs would be kept under firm control in future.

Brian Sinclair visited Thirsk not only during his vacations from veterinary college, but whenever the practice became impossibly busy. He would then ‘secure' leave to come to Thirsk where he would help by going on farm visits, making up medicines, acting as a receptionist, or assisting with any other tasks Donald set him. This rather elastic arrangement with the veterinary college contributed to Brian taking over ten years to pass his examinations. He had, in fact, begun his veterinary education at the Royal Dick Veterinary College in Edinburgh when he was seventeen, but repeated failures in his examinations resulted in the college suggesting to Donald that his brother should carry on his studies at an alternative centre of learning.

He moved to Glasgow Veterinary College for just one year – where he was thrown out of the terrifying Professor Emslie's class for laughing
(something that was completely beyond Alf's comprehension), before Donald, now at his wit's end, returned him to Edinburgh.

Dire warnings from Donald, together with a realisation that the funding of his education could possibly cease, resulted in the young man pulling himself together and finally qualifying as a fully-fledged veterinary surgeon in December 1943.

Alf could never look back on those early days with Donald and Brian without a smile stealing across his face. They were, in reality, days of toil and hardship, but they were also ones of humour and excitement, spent with two of the most entertaining men he had had the privilege of knowing. Many years later, through the books of James Herriot, those hours of laughter along the stone corridors of ‘Skeldale House' would be shared by millions more.

In 1941, Brian Sinclair was involved in a very important event in Alfred Wight's life. The two young men were friendly with a cattle dealer in Thirsk called Malcolm Johnson, a likeable worthy of the town who met Brian and Alf regularly over a few pints of beer. This sociable fellow, a mine of information on the local population, enjoyed not only male company – he knew numerous young ladies, one of whom was a girl called Joan Danbury.

He approached her one day. ‘There's a dance in the village hall in Sandhutton tomorrow night,' he said. ‘I'm thinking of going with a couple of friends of mine and wondered if you and a few of your friends would like to come along?'

At the time, Joan was already involved quite seriously but she was always interested in a lively night out. ‘Who are these friends of yours? Do I know them?' she asked.

‘Oh, a couple of young veterinary fellows – Alf Wight and Brian Sinclair. They're a good laugh and they have a car so we could all drive out to the dance.' Wisely, Malcolm decided not to describe the car in too much detail; he was all too aware of its condition. It was a typical Sinclair car, featuring holes in the floor, a symphony of rattles, and the rich, unmistakable aroma of the farmyard.

Joan agreed to go. On a wet night in March 1941, Alf, Brian, Malcolm, Joan, her friend Doreen Garbutt and another young woman set off from 23 Kirkgate in the direction of the village dance in Sandhutton.

Joan Danbury, on whom the character of Helen in the Herriot books is based, was not the daughter of a farmer as the reader is led to believe. She was a secretary at Rymer's Mill, the corn merchants in Thirsk, and her father was an official in local government who was working at that time in York. Her family came from Winchcombe, a picturesque little town in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, and they moved to Thirsk when Joan was eight years old. At the time of her meeting with Alf, she had quite a string of boyfriends, her number one suitor being a wealthy farmer from the Harrogate area.

It is not surprising that she had her admirers; photographs taken of
her in her younger days reveal a very attractive girl. Some of the descriptions of Helen in the first books describe the young Joan Danbury vividly: ‘The small, straight nose' and the mouth ‘that turned up markedly at the corners as though she was just going to smile or had just been smiling. The deep warm blue of the eyes under the smoothly arching brows made a dizzying partnership with the rich black brown of the hair.'

Alf's first evening with Joan in the company of their friends did not go smoothly. In appalling weather, the little Ford car ground to a halt on a flooded road with water pouring in through the floor. The men leapt out, pushed the car onto drier ground, restarted it and returned to 23 Kirkgate in order to dry themselves out. They finally made the dance, then returned once again to the old house where they spent the remainder of the evening chatting, drinking and listening to Brian's endless string of humorous stories. He threw in a couple of spectacular convulsions for good measure.

From that very first meeting, Alf decided that Joan Danbury was worth pursuing, although he acknowledged there was plenty of competition. He summoned up the courage to ask whether he could see her again and, to his delight, she agreed. If she was looking for someone with money, she certainly was on to a loser with Alf Wight. He may have been a professional man but, in common with many young veterinary surgeons of his day, he was a financial nonentity; he was worth little more than the clothes he stood up in, with his capital in the bank standing at around five or ten pounds.

She saw other qualities in him. He was an attractive young man with a sincerity and honesty about him that appealed to her. Most importantly, they shared a similar sense of humour and she enjoyed his company – vital ingredients in the recipe for a long and happy relationship.

Their courtship was not an extravagant one. As Joan, too, had little money, visits to the cinema (romantically seated at the back in the ‘one and nines'), trips to village dances and walking in the hills were enough to stretch their budget to its limits.

Joan, when time off from her job allowed, often accompanied Alf on his TB Testing trips up into the Dales, helping him by writing the numbers of the cows in the book. Although he loved the Dales, the TB work was boring and repetitive, but to have a young lady, to whom he felt so attracted, accompany him on his long and usually solitary
journeys, put a completely different complexion on the working day.

The village dances were a prominent feature of country life. They have largely disappeared today but, fifty or more years ago, there was a dance every Saturday night in one of the local village halls with throngs of people, young and old, attending them. A few drinks in a nearby pub, followed by an energetic fling on the dance floor and a good feed from the vast tables groaning with good Yorkshire fare, made for a great night out.

These events, at which he had a chance to observe the huge appetites of the Yorkshire country folk, were a revelation to Alf. The food, usually prepared by local housewives, was of the highest calibre, even during the austerity of the war years. Pork pies, brawn, piles of sandwiches, apple pies, trifles, cakes and pastries were all consumed with effortless ease. He was a willing participant in the duty of demolishing the delicious mountains of food – and, in Joan, he had an able assistant. Over his many years working among the farming community, Alf never ceased to be astonished by the farmers' ability to put away staggering quantities of food. He was always a good eater himself, but these people were in a league of their own; they worked hard and they had appetites to match.

I remember, many years ago, attending the silver wedding celebrations of one of our farming clients in a small village hall. The place was teeming with laughing faces, there were vast amounts of food, and very soon a buzz of satisfaction pervaded the atmosphere, dominated by the noise of the scraping of plates and happy chatter. People filed up to the serving tables for second and third helpings, and I was taking my turn when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was an old client of my father called Herbert Megginson who was a regular at the village dances in the days when he used to visit them. He especially used to enjoy dancing with my mother – on one evening, when heavily under the influence of drink, whispering unsteadily into her ear, ‘Ooh! You 'ave such a supple form!'

‘Supple form', as he was always known from that day onwards, was enjoying himself on this occasion, surrounded as he was by food, drink and women. ‘Hey, vitin'ry!' he said, with a knowing smile.

‘Hello, Mr Megginson,' I replied. ‘This is a good “do”. Plenty to eat!'

‘Aye, ye're right there!' He plucked at my sleeve. He was obviously impressed by the speed with which the food was being shovelled out
of sight. He nodded in the direction of a group of busy, sweating faces. ‘'Ave yer got yer instruments with yer in case someone gets blown?'

It was at these village functions, which formed such an enjoyable part of their courtship, that Alf and Joan met many people who would become lasting friends, but there was a serious side to Alf's courtship, too. He was a great letter writer and pursued Joan with the written as well as the spoken word. Some early letters in the summer of 1941 reveal his fluency as a writer, together with more than a dash of the romantic to his nature:

Joan my dear,

Why on earth should I be writing this when, if the Gods are kind, I'll be seeing you tonight? I believe it is because something, a very trivial something, has been fermenting in this funny, analytical mind of mine and now demands an outlet. It is just that a succession of little thoughts have resolved themselves into a brooding sense of injustice that so many fellows seem to be writing love letters to young Danbury while Wight, with all his music within him, as it were, never puts pen to paper.

Anyway, Joan, now that I am sitting down to the job, I find myself rather up against it because I realise now that I have never written a love letter before. But how difficult it is when it should be so easy. Somehow, the feeling I have for you is not one that bubbles up and froths over in a mass of endearing terms and neatly turned compliments. It is such a very quiet thing like a wide, deep running river and so completely sincere that I, who have always shunned sincerity with its way of laying one open to all the hurts and disappointments that are going, am rather scared. It is only when I sit down to write that I realise the hopeless inadequacy of words to come near to expressing my thoughts; or maybe I am just tired.

Yes, that's it. How can I make a go of this very important letter when my head is nodding and my arms are aching? But I am going to stagger out with this unfinished fragment so that tomorrow you'll know that I did make an effort anyway. I'll be thinking of you till Tuesday – all the time. Goodnight, Joan.

Just yours,

Alf.

His sincerity and quiet determination were to pay dividends. In July 1941, he proposed to Joan and she accepted. Overjoyed, he felt that this was the happiest moment of his entire life as he looked
forward in anticipation to spending the rest of his life with the girl he knew was the right one for him. There was, however, a blot on the landscape; it was a large one and it was two hundred miles away in Glasgow.

Alf's mother, a most strong-minded and formidable lady, was not pleased that her son was considering getting married before he had achieved any lasting security. Shortly after he had mentioned the subject to her, she made her feelings known during a tense and bitter telephone conversation. She considered that no one was good enough for her only son, stating, very emphatically, that Joan was taking her place in his affections. His father, too, did not approve, but his objections were of a more practical nature. Pop, the eternal pessimist, worried that his son would be unable to support a young wife at such an impecunious stage of his life and he expressed his feelings strongly, though not quite so forcefully as his wife.

Alf's feelings are best illustrated by reproducing excerpts from letters written to his parents during this difficult time. The first was dated 21 July.

Dear Mother and Dad,

I'd like to tell you how I am feeling just in case you think I am airily dismissing your side of everything. No son ever had more wonderful parents than I have and I have lain awake at nights marvelling at the things you have done for me and worrying about how I could ever repay you. I often thought that there was nothing that I could do for you that would ever make up for your wonderful kindness and self sacrifice ….

You asked for some particulars, Mother, about Joan and said you would be a severe critic. You frighten me a bit there because if you are out to criticise you'll find plenty of faults because she's just an ordinary girl and no paragon of all the virtues…. But just one thing, Mother; never talk again about anyone ‘taking your place'. Nobody will ever do that. You have a compartment all to yourself in my mind.

Alf, although deeply hurt and disappointed by his parents' reaction, would not be put off marrying the girl he loved. In August, he took his somewhat apprehensive fiancée to Glasgow to introduce her to his parents. His mother, although civil to Joan, reiterated her objections to Alf who, in turn, reaffirmed his intention to marry. Pop, who liked Joan immediately, was far more welcoming, but he was overshadowed
by the considerably more determined figure of his wife. The visit heralded an especially difficult period in the relationship between Alf and his mother.

One of Hannah Wight's objections to her only son's choice of future wife was that she did not come from a good enough family. Hannah, through her successful dressmaking business, had been mixing in some highly influential social circles. She had made elaborate dresses for several society weddings, and the thought of her only son marrying someone with very little money was too much to bear. Even worse, Alf told her that he and Joan were planning to be married quietly and unceremoniously, thus denying her the prospect of participating in a grand white wedding – one for which she certainly would have expected to have been asked to provide the dresses. She was not in any way rude to Joan during the visit, but her intense disappointment was something she could not fully hide.

Joan was certainly not frozen out by the rest of Alf's family; they both received enormous support from the relations in Sunderland. Both his uncles, Bob and Matt, after meeting her for the first time, were quick to pass their vote of approval back to Hannah. Uncle Stan and Auntie Jinny felt similarly, as did Alf's cousin, Nan. During this difficult time, these warm gestures of friendship and acceptance from Alf's relatives would never be forgotten by Joan. She made many lasting friendships with those open and friendly people of Sunderland.

Hannah, however, continued to voice her disapproval right up until the wedding day in November. Alf's feelings are adequately revealed in a letter written only three days before the wedding: