The Real James Herriot (18 page)

It was not only Alf who realised that he was on to a good thing in his early married days. His college friends, Jimmy Steele and Bob Smith, who had procured jobs in the nearby towns of Knaresborough and
Boroughbridge, visited Alf in Thirsk on several occasions. The three men not only had the enjoyment of swapping their tales of triumphs and disasters, but they had the pleasure of sampling Joan's cooking. Jimmy assured Alf that the experience had convinced him that it was time he looked out for a wife for himself.

The daily consumption of such culinary delights had its downside. Alf, for the first time in his life, began to get fat. His intake of food was so high that even the hard exercise up and down the hillsides in the Dales, or the energy-sapping calvings, rolling about on cow byre floors, were not enough to burn away the calories. Donald was the opposite. He was built like a string bean, with long thin arms and a spare waistline. As one client commented: ‘Ah've seen more fat on a fork shaft!' Another client, Jim Fletcher, remarked to me one day, while recalling Messrs Sinclair and Wight of years ago: ‘When your dad stripped off we used to say, “Where's 'e come from?” and when Mr Sinclair took his shirt off, we'd say, “Where's 'he gone?'”

One thing, above all others, that benefited from Alf's life as a country veterinary surgeon was his health. The active outdoor life – calvings, foalings, the miles of exercise hiking to the high barns in the Yorkshire Dales – made him feel better than he had done for many years. Alf was deeply appreciative of his good fortune in this respect. He looked back to those pain-wracked days in Sunderland, hardly able to believe that, in so short a space, the healing hand of time, together with the clean, fresh air of Yorkshire, had effected such a remarkable transformation.

Alf's happy state of mind reached new heights in July 1942 when he learned that Joan was expecting their first child. He was soon to be a father as well as a husband, and the idea of becoming a family man was one that thrilled him. He had a job that he loved, a wife with whom he was exceptionally happy, and a baby was on the way.

There was something, however that loomed over him like a gathering storm. Some sixteen months earlier, just a week or two after meeting Joan for the first time, Alf had signed up to join the Royal Air Force. As a qualified veterinary surgeon – a profession rated as a reserved occupation – there had been little pressure on his serving in the armed forces, but at the time, fired up by the wave of patriotism that had been sweeping Britain, he had looked forward enthusiastically to serving his country at a time of need. As the months had flown by, with Alf beginning to wonder whether he would ever be called up for training, he and Joan had seen no point in delaying starting a family. When his
call-up papers did eventually arrive on his twenty-sixth birthday in October 1942, they filled him with gloom. He was now in a vastly different position to that of the carefree young bachelor vet of sixteen months ago. He was a married man with a pregnant wife and responsibilities. Also, having begun to establish himself in the practice, he looked on his forthcoming call-up as potentially damaging to both his career and to the practice.

Just over seven weeks later, on 16 November 1942, Alf Wight boarded the train at Thirsk railway station on the way to serving his country in the Royal Air Force. He was to assume a new identity – 1047279 AC2 Wight, J. A. On that day, he had graduated from the status of an insignificant specimen of the veterinary profession to that of a tiny pawn in the turmoil of the Second World War.

Quite apart from wanting to serve his country at a time when Britain was virtually standing alone against the might of Nazi Germany, there was another good reason why Alf joined up. In March 1941, the German Luftwaffe had launched a savage air raid on the city of Glasgow. The area of Clydebank was a prime target, with the big shipyards on the River Clyde receiving special attention; hundreds of people had been killed. It had been an intensely worrying time for Alf because his parents lived very close to Clydebank. They survived but their house at 694 Anniesland Road, into which they had only recently moved, was badly damaged. Alf had been given leave by Donald to visit Glasgow to see his parents, from where he wrote a letter to Joan giving her an account of the grim conditions there.

My dear Joan,

I suppose you'll have heard that my house was blitzed. After some searching around, I've found that there is no chance at all of finding another place around here as everyone is in the same boat. So, there's nothing for it but to try to make the battered remains of the old house more or less habitable and to get a good shelter built in the garden in case of a second visit.

Number 694 looks rather like Rievaulx Abbey on a smaller scale but we have managed to make two rooms at the back sort of half safe though it's dangerous to bang the doors in case the ceiling comes down. It is all rather sickening but I am too pleased that my folks are safe to worry about material things. Mother sleeps at one of the few comparatively sound houses in the district and Dad and I kip down on the floor under a dining table, just in case the ceiling gets tired of staying up. We have reached the stage of laughing at everything so we aren't so bad. My beloved grand piano had a leg blown away but I've managed to get it shored up and, much to my delight, it still plays. I bet it's queer for people outside to hear strains of music emanating from the ruins!

Infuriated by this affront to his beloved city, Alf had signed up to join the Royal Air Force. Little did he realise that it would be a full twenty months before he would begin his training. One reason was that there
was no shortage of young men applying to become fighter pilots; it was in maintaining the supply of planes, not those who could fly them, where the RAF felt its most pressing need. Moreover, the authorities did not regard a man in a reserved occupation to be high on the call-up list: veterinary surgeons were needed at home to contribute towards the well-being of British agriculture and the all-important food production line. To further add to the problems he faced endeavouring to serve his country, that old bugbear came back to haunt him – mathematics.

He had to pass some fundamental mathematics exams before he would be accepted, and he attended night school in Thirsk to brush up on his slender knowledge of the subject. After a number of failures, he finally gained the necessary grades and was therefore clear to go when his call-up papers arrived.

He described that day in November 1942, as he left Thirsk to begin his training, as the ‘blackest day of my life'. Driving away from 23 Kirkgate, and seeing his pregnant wife waving tearfully from the window, was a scene he would never forget.

Alf's time in the Royal Air Force was not particularly eventful, and he was only there for just over a year before being invalided out but, ironically, there is a mass of information about that disappointing part of his life. He and Joan wrote to each other almost every day while he was serving, and she kept literally hundreds of the letters that passed between them.

On his very first day away from Joan, he wrote to her:

My Darling Joan,

I have just a few minutes before lights out to write this and I'm feeling very tired after a day of tremendous activity. I feel heaps better than I did this morning; I thought it was the cold that made me feel so rotten, but it wasn't. It was leaving my little wife that did it. Honestly, Joan, I've never felt so completely lousy in my life and believe me, it has been a lesson to me; I'll never leave my little wife again. It's funny, I haven't known you so very long and yet you have become my whole life to me and when I left Thirsk I felt I was leaving a part of myself behind.

He was certainly at a low ebb – but no more so than Joan. Like many other young wives, she was terrified that her husband might be killed while on active service, not a happy thought for a young woman carrying her first child. She knew that she would only see him very rarely, and
it certainly didn't help that his pay was to be a paltry three shillings per day – a big step down from the £4–5 per week he had earned in the practice. He sent as much as he could afford but it amounted to very little. With her parents having none to spare and her husband almost penniless, Joan was supported by a wartime benefit and maternity allowance amounting to about £2 10s per week.

The multitude of letters that passed between Alf and Joan carried a similar theme – Alf, despite the pain of being away from his wife, displayed a determination to do well in the RAF, while Joan wished desperately that he could return home. It was a very sad young woman who waited expectantly each morning for the letter from her husband that would help to lift her spirits.

Alf's first month was spent at Regent's Park in London where he was examined, inoculated and trained in preparation for his assignment to an initial training wing. He drilled and marched for hours in all weathers. He attended courses on maths, navigation and meteorology which were followed by test papers. To his surprise, he passed the basic maths exam quite easily.

The standard required was not very high which, of course, suited Alf very well but it was a stern test for those who had had little education; for these men, the sitting of examinations was a frightening experience. Later, when he moved to Scarborough, he was amazed to observe the effect this had on some of his fellow trainees. Men came out in boils, some hardly slept and there were long queues for the lavatories just before the exams.

Alf was older than most of the other men, with the experience of many years of exams behind him and, at the ripe old age of twenty-six, he was looked upon by his comrades as something of a father figure, with many of his mates approaching him for advice.

In one letter home, he gives an indication of the intellectual level of some of the new recruits. When visiting Westminster Abbey, one young airman saw a floor-plate with the words, ‘Here lies an Officer and a Gentleman.' The young man remarked, ‘Queer idea, burying two guys in one grave.'

Many others, however, were well educated – with doctors, teachers and accountants amongst those who made his group of fellow trainees a true cross-section of society.

While at Regent's Park, he had one of his teeth pulled out; the RAF was very keen on keeping the men's teeth in good order, as any
problems could cause great pain while they were in the air, affecting their concentration. This particular dentist, however, was of doubtful assistance, yanking out the wrong tooth with a huge pair of forceps that bore a strong resemblance to those used on heavy draught horses. Alf had had few problems with his teeth before he joined up; his service days changed all that.

Not knowing where he would be posted for his initial training, Alf applied for a posting to Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast. This was granted and, on 19 December 1942, he moved there, attached to No 10 Initial Training Wing, No 4 Squadron, No 2 Flight. His spirits soared; he would be a mere forty miles away from Joan in Thirsk.

Alf was in Scarborough for five months and it was here that he spent his happiest times in the RAF. He trained very hard and soon became extremely fit, with long runs along the beach and up the sea cliffs, endless marching, drilling and gymnastics, all turning him into a lean, ten-stone machine. The men were billeted in the Grand Hotel where the windows were nailed open to allow the freezing north-east wind to roar around the dormitories. Far from succumbing to terminal pneumonia, he suffered few coughs and sneezes under this hard regime and felt fitter than he had ever been in his life.

As well as the physical training, he studied navigation, morse code, armaments, hygiene and law, in addition to being taught to understand about engines and to develop basic mechanical skills. Alf passed the exams easily and began to feel that he was acquitting himself well. He looked forward to the next step in his training; he wanted to climb into an aeroplane and get into the air.

Alf's most enjoyable times at Scarborough, however, were when he visited Joan in Thirsk and this is a part of my father's life that I find intriguing. He was always a man who played everything by the book; the idea of breaking the law in any way was unthinkable. Throughout his years as a veterinary surgeon he never pocketed a single penny away from the eyes of the Inland Revenue, nor did he smuggle as much as a thimbleful of wine through customs during his holidays abroad. As far as the law was concerned he was a total conformist yet, during the months of January and February 1943, he went absent without leave several times to visit his wife.

He must have been desperate to see her as the consequences, had he been found out, could have been very serious. The need to see Joan
was heightened by the strange fact that he experienced odd pains in his stomach as the birth of his first child approached. His letters to Joan at this time refer to these weird pains.

He ‘deserted' for the third time on 13 February 1943, to visit her on the day that I was born. As he later wrote in
Vets Might Fly,
he received a severe shock on seeing his son for the first time. He was used to gazing upon new-born animals – usually most attractive and appealing little creatures – but the sight of a freshly-minted human being presented a vastly different picture. His surprise was greeted with waspish indignation by the midwife, Nurse Bell, who promptly showed him another equally grotesque little form in the next room. It was only then that he felt a little calmer.

Shortly after the birth of her son, Joan returned to live with her parents in Sowerby, a village adjoining Thirsk. Alf visited her whenever he could, reminiscing in his later years about the delectable meals she prepared for him. His favourite was egg and chips.

One of the privations of the war years was, of course, rationing. Such staples as eggs and butter were in short supply but Joan had connections with some local farmers while Donald would sometimes slip a little butter and a few eggs her way. Alf was always a man who loved his food – and, in the far-distant future, would eat in some of the finest restaurants in the land – but he would experience nothing that could beat the memory of savouring those plates of fresh eggs and home-made chips.

There were some enterprising individuals in the Thirsk area who made the most of this war-time rationing, with thriving businesses springing up, especially in the farming community. Eggs, butter, bacon and ham were there in plenty, if you knew where to look – and were prepared to pay. As Alf remarked later, ‘Aye, it was a black day on some of the farms round here when peace was declared in 1945!'

Following the birth of his son, Alf felt much happier, but he was soon to be posted further away from Joan to begin his flying instruction. On 20 May, with a swollen face – the RAF dentists having raided his mouth again, hauling out two wisdom teeth and filling several others – he arrived at Winkfield aerodrome near Windsor. By now, he had graduated to the rank of Leading Aircraftsman, second class (LAC2) and his pay had shot up to seven shillings per day. Not only was he looking forward to flying, but his financial status was healthier; he had the sum of £9
in the bank and, even better, Joan had £14. Although Alf did not like heights and invariably experienced severe vertigo when perched on the top of a cliff, his days in the air at Windsor held no fear for him. He learned to fly in small single-engined planes, Tiger Moths, and he loved it. Out of fifty men, he was one of only four who were allowed to fly solo after less than two weeks. His first solo flight was on 7 June, and he managed to land successfully first time, while the others made repeated attempts, watched with rising tension by the instructors on the ground.

Alf was making a real success of his RAF career, the only blot being his constant state of homesickness and worry about his wife who, he knew, was still missing him desperately. In addition, Joan's only brother, Joe, of whom she was extremely fond, was serving in Gibraltar and she worried about him, too. Alf tried continually to raise her spirits, exhorting her to think of the happy times that they would have when he returned to civilian life. A letter written from Windsor, just prior to a day or two of leave, illustrates very eloquently his memories of life at home.

Joan my darling,

Tomorrow will be the first of June and it brings back memories of the last two Junes. Two years ago this time, I had just realised I had met the only girl and was walking on air and living in a land of beautiful dreams. Country dances and long nights under the moon, a little print dress and a yellow Laburnum tree. Days of sunshine and longings and jealous frettings, the most wonderful ecstasies and the most dreadful glooms. What a summer that was! And the next year, quiet happy days in our little room, tomato growing, little fights and ‘not speakings', trips to York, broccoli on Sundays and over everything a wonderful sense of peace and happiness.