The Real James Herriot

by Jim Wight

  Sundays were days for going to church. During his adult life, Alf was not a regular church-goer, but in his primary school days he attended Sunday School each week. His memories of going to church in Yoker were not as vivid as those when he occasionally attended in Sunderland with his uncles and aunts. The Methodist services in those days were conducted with fiery enthusiasm. The minister would frequently be interrupted from the floor with cries of ‘Hallelujah!’ or ‘Praise the Lord!’, followed by splinter groups chanting hymns with rhythmic and deafening abandon. It was pure ‘fire and brimstone’ which young Alf found quite daunting. The services in Yoker Church were not quite so dramatic but one story he told about his Sunday School was rather more intriguing. The small children who were taken out regularly for short walks were taught to spit whenever they passed the Catholic church.

  When the history of the city of Glasgow is considered, the spectacle of small children spitting at a church should come as no surprise. Glasgow has had a strong Irish-Catholic population since the middle of the nineteenth century when thousands poured into the city to find work during the boom years. This resulted in Glasgow becoming a city split by religious beliefs, and feelings could run high. In Alf’s day (and still now) you were either a ‘Proddy’ or a ‘Papist’ in parts of Glasgow and, along with his friends, young Alfie Wight, the little Protestant, was instructed by his teacher to vent his feelings against the Catholic enemy. Fortunately, this sectarian dogma failed to establish a hold over young Alf, and he grew up to be a most fair-minded and tolerant man who could never understand the hatred engendered by these strong beliefs.

  Life at Yoker School prepared Alf well for the next step in his education. Most of his schoolmates went on to government-maintained secondary schools – including Alex Taylor who went to Victoria Drive School – but Alf’s mother had other ideas. She wanted the very best for her son and decreed that he would go to one of the foremost fee-paying schools in Glasgow. Alf obtained the grades necessary for his secondary education and on 3 September 1928, he travelled three miles into the city to the leafy suburb of Hillhead where he walked, for the first time, through the doors of Hillhead High School.

  Chapter Two

  At the time of Alf’s admission, Hillhead High School had an excellent reputation, and there was strong competition for places. Alf found himself mixing with many pupils who came from more affluent homes than his own in Yoker. This did not worry him. For the next five years he played his part in applying himself diligently to his work, as his parents played theirs in meeting the school fees and providing a stable family background.

  These were difficult times for Pop. Having been made redundant from the shipyards, he was still playing in cinemas and theatres in the city, as well as working as a joiner but his income was certainly not enough to support his family and meet the school fees of around £2–10s per term. Alf, who loved his father dearly, would later reminisce about those days in Glasgow. ‘It was a great struggle at that time for poor old Pop,’ he said. ‘He was bouncing in and out of jobs, with absolutely no guarantee of security in any one of them, but he always held down a job of some sort.’

  Although Pop was rarely out of work, it was Hannah, through her thriving dressmaking business, complemented by giving some piano and singing lessons, who was largely responsible for keeping the family finances afloat. Alf Wight was never to forget the support he received from his parents throughout his eleven years of education in Glasgow.

  The building in Cecil Street in which he began his secondary education was a solid, but dour, four-storey building within which was a maze of small, overcrowded classrooms. The problems presented by this lack of space, in a school with more than 600 pupils, resulted in its moving, in September 1931, to another building a short distance away in Oakfield Avenue. Here Alf spent the final two years of his time at Hillhead. In the summer of 1997, I visited my father’s old school. No longer a fee-paying school, it is now run by the Education Department of Glasgow City Council, but this austere red brick building has hardly changed in appearance from Alf’s days there. Inside, the classrooms are still arranged exactly as they were, alongside the once-icy corridors he strode as a boy. The present headmaster, Ken Cunningham, told me that the school was very aware of its connection with James Herriot but, although he enjoyed his time there, Alf rarely referred to his days at Hillhead. Perhaps those days of intense study, combined with iron discipline, did not leave such lasting memories as other more flamboyant periods of his life.

  It was during his years at Hillhead, however, that the young Alf Wight was to develop qualities he would carry with him throughout his life – diligence and ambition, together with a love of literature, sport and music. Above all, he acquired attributes that would be the hall-mark of the father I knew – a keen interest in a wide variety of subjects, enthusiasm for everything he did, and a great appreciation of any good fortune that would come his way.

  He always assured us that he was a poor pupil, but his school reports tell a different story. His final leaving report is marked ‘excellent’ for progress, diligence and conduct. His three best subjects were English, French and Latin, with the dreaded Maths trailing far behind. He was well taught. Hillhead, under the headmaster Frank Beaumont, had a reputation for academic excellence backed up by strong discipline. Corporal punishment, so frowned upon today, was a very effective means of maintaining law and order; the school motto was Je maintiendrai, ‘I will maintain’. The trusted ally of the teachers in upholding discipline was the belt, and Alf was on the receiving end of it many times. This is one part of his life at school that Alf remembered well. One of his teachers, ‘Big Bill’ Barclay, one whom he remembered better than any, commanded great respect through his physical presence as well as his teaching ability. He did not need to use the belt too often but when he did it was an occasion to be remembered. Some of the teachers would use the belt without hesitation – the slightest misdemeanour being punished with up to six lashes across the hands and wrists. Three thongs at the end of the thick leather strap ensured that there was a thorough distribution of pain.

  Alf received a nasty surprise one day when Mr Filshie, his Maths master, expressed displeasure at his pupil’s performance. Alf had achieved the remarkable total of 5% in a trigonometry exam and was about to be punished. He recalled this painful incident in his contribution to the Hillhead High School Centenary Year Magazine in 1985.

  ‘Wight,’ said Mr Filshie ominously, ‘I have always thought that you were just an amiable idiot and have treated you accordingly, but now that I see you have come out top of the class in your English paper, I can only conclude that you have not been trying for me. Hold out your hands!’

  Although doing nothing to improve Alf’s Maths, this painful means of maintaining control worked and there was a record of excellent discipline within the school. It was this, perhaps, that stimulated the young Alf Wight to keep, for the first time, a diary.

  One of the most intriguing aspects of James Herriot’s writing was his ability to reproduce incidents that occurred many years before. His attention to detail is so authentic that one would be forgiven for thinking that they happened only yesterday. Many people, when discussing his work, assumed that he meticulously kept diaries to which he referred when he began writing in earnest. Alf often stated, in his many interviews with the media, that he did not keep a diary and that he could remember the old days clearly, right down to the smallest detail. Despite these assertions, he was widely disbelieved, but, in fact, Alfred Wight was not quite the organised and methodical man that many believed him to be. Apart from two brief periods in his life, he did not keep a diary but he was a great observer, especially of anything that interested him, and had an excellent photographic memory. The fascinating vagaries of human nature and the humorous incidents that unfolded before his eyes remained firmly in his mind; this, combined with his gift as a writer, provided a recipe for success.

  The first time he kept a diary was from 1933 until 1935 – during h
is last year at Hillhead School and his first two years at Glasgow Veterinary College. His mother preserved these old diaries, and they have provided an insight into the enthusiastic approach to life that Alf exhibited as a young man.

  He used his diary to poke fun at his teachers at Hillhead. ‘Miss Chesters (Sophy), endeavours to pump French into us. Chesters is frank and almost boyish and I like her very well. Twice a week, we get Mr (Tarzan) Brookes for Elocution. This bird, tho’ probably well meaning, is nothing but a funiosity.’ And he wrote about his Latin master: ‘Buckie was in a terrible mood today. Roaring and bellowing at us like a rogue elephant. Today, I was amazed to see the length to which his eyes could boggle without falling out.’

  As is hinted by these humorous swipes at his teachers, he enjoyed his time at Hillhead. He loved English and Latin, reading widely around both subjects in his spare time at home. He read ancient writers such as Cicero and Ovid, saying later that so well-versed was he in Latin that he reckoned he could carry on a conversation with an ancient Roman. Alf’s English, too, benefited from the hours of reading that he put in, and the great enthusiasm he showed for his subjects meant that his school studies were a pleasure.

  I always knew that my father was a well-read man. Our home in Thirsk was always bulging with books and almost all of them had been read. His love of reading stemmed from his schooldays – days during which, whenever he had a spare hour or two, he had a book in his hand. He did not just enjoy reading adventure stories; he devoured the classics avidly. By the age of fifteen, he had read the entire works of Charles Dickens, and his diaries substantiate this. Throughout, there are references to Dickens, Scott, Pepys and, on a more lyrical note, Shakespeare and Milton. ‘Got Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities out of the library as we have to read it for school. That suits me down to the ground as I am a great admirer of Dickens.’ Dickens gets another mention: ‘Dad is smoking Kensitas. They give coupons and I sent away for a catalogue; included is the works of Dickens in 16 superb volumes for 10 shillings. I’m going to get them.’

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells and H. Rider Haggard were amongst his favourite adventure writers and he wrote that O’Henry was ‘a joy to read’. The Kensitas coupons came in very useful; as well as the complete works of Dickens, volumes of O’Henry and Shakespeare were obtained with their assistance. On the lighter side, P. G. Wodehouse was his number one author, and the Jeeves Omnibus his favourite book of all. He read and re-read this book throughout his life, the antics of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, Young Bingo and others invariably rendering him helpless with laughter.

  P. G. Wodehouse must have had a profound effect on young Alf. Some turns of phrase that he used in his diaries smack of passages from Wodehouse’s books. While on holiday in West Kilbride in July 1933, he wrote the following about some people he had met: ‘David Somerville seems to be crackers over Evelyn, the poor fish! Monty and I regard Dorothy as a fairly decent spud.’ This style appears frequently in his diaries, revealing evidence of his admiration for Wodehouse’s work.

  As a boy, he shared these moments of laughter over Wodehouse with his own father who was also an avid reader and whose home was always full of books. The high quality of the English teaching at Hillhead under ‘Johnny’ Gibb and ‘Big Bill’ was a great stimulus but Pop was also very influential in steering Alf towards the joy of reading, deserving a great deal of credit for the encouragement he gave his son in those formative years.

  As well as encouraging his son to read, Pop was largely responsible for instilling in him a great love of music. The intense satisfaction his father gleaned from both playing and listening to it did not go unnoticed by the young boy who grew up to appreciate good music every bit as much as his father. Pop loved all kinds of music. During our many visits to Glasgow in my younger days, I used to be fascinated by the old gramophone player that stood in a corner of the house next to the grand piano. This venerable machine had to be wound up by hand, after which the turntable began to revolve and a huge steel arm with a wicked-looking needle would be lowered onto the record. The result was a wild crackling, behind which could be heard some music. It was, however, Pop’s pride and joy. One of his favourite operatic records was of the great Caruso singing ‘Vesti la Giubba’ from I Pagliacci. One of Alf’s enduring boyhood memories was of his father, sitting night after night next to the old gramophone, listening to this great performer. When Caruso’s magnificent voice began to slip into a lower gear, Pop would leap to his feet and crank vigorously at the handle of the gramophone until musical perfection was restored. That overworked record is still in my possession.

  Alf’s parents first started him at the piano at the age of six. He had years of lessons – his teacher being none other than his father – but he was a poor pupil and practised with little enthusiasm. This became a source of intense frustration for Pop, and many hours of raised voices and discordant notes were endured by father and son before Pop finally conceded defeat. Alf did perform, at the age of thirteen, at a concert in Clydebank Town Hall but that was to be the pinnacle of his piano-playing career.

  None of this lessened Alf’s love of music. Although he was never to be the accomplished player his father had been, he had inherited his, and his mother’s, ear for music – something that would give him untold pleasure throughout his life.

  It was not only the academic and cultured side of his schooldays that Alf enjoyed; he loved playing sport and Hillhead had a proud reputation on the playing fields of Scotland. Cricket, athletics and tennis were Alf’s favourites and in the 1931–2 year he won an athletics medal, coming second in the Inter-scholastics Sports. His main achievement was in the long jump – known as the broad jump in those days – where he produced a jump of over nineteen feet.

  Alf was keen on athletics but the sport at which he really excelled was tennis. In his final year at Hillhead he reached the tennis final only to be narrowly defeated, but he was not discouraged. He had joined Yoker Tennis Club and reached the club’s final the following year, only to be beaten once again. However, being beaten in two successive finals did not deter him. He continued to play tennis regularly throughout his remaining years in Glasgow, winning many matches in the West of Scotland Tennis Championships, and when he finally moved to Yorkshire, he played competitive tennis until well into his thirties. His hours of playing when a young man in Glasgow resulted in his becoming a highly proficient performer.

  Both the playing of and the following of sport figured prominently in Alf’s schooldays, with his boyhood diaries full of references to it. The England cricket team and the fortunes of Hillhead on the rugby field are frequently mentioned but most of the space is allocated to Sunderland Football Club. Despite the fact that his team was 150 miles away, his allegiance to the Red and Whites never faltered. During his years in Glasgow, he watched Rangers and Celtic many times – and he supported Motherwell in the Scottish League – but the fanaticism of his father ensured that it was the team from the town of his birth that remained closest to his heart.

  His feelings are exposed on many of the pages, where he wrote quite eloquently of the old team, as on 28 September 1933: ‘Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! What a day! Why weren’t these spaces made bigger? Sunderland have defeated Aston Villa by three goals to nothing at Villa Park. Sunderland have never won the cup, despite their magnificent league performances but is this their year? You bet it is! Much as I am tempted to wax poetic about this great event, I’m afraid that, in accordance with the requirements of this volume, I must recount my own doings.’ On a more sombre note, he wrote: ‘Eheu! I am plunged into the very depths of despondency. Life, to me, is dark and gloomy and the future looms up forbidding and hopeless. Sunderland have been defeated by Derby County at Roker Park.’ How passionately he followed the fortunes of the team that was to provide him with a lifetime of both joy and despair.

  The diary of 1933 is notable for Alf’s positive approach towards looking after his health. He repeatedly commented on how well he was feeling, the reason for this b
eing that the previous year had been a very bad one for him. He had almost died of diphtheria. This disease, caused by a virulent germ, is rarely seen today. It was virtually eliminated in 1946 as a result of the discovery of a vaccine but at the beginning of his final year at Hillhead, Alf contracted the disease – and it very nearly finished him off. In those days, prior to the discovery of antibiotics, he had to fight the disease simply through sheer determination coupled with good nursing from his parents. The standard symptoms were a sore throat and searing headaches, the throat becoming coated in an unpleasant ‘cheesy’ exudate which made breathing very difficult. In addition, he developed a series of painful abscesses all over his body, and these continued to be a problem for two years after his recovery from the disease. He recalled one particularly gruesome boil at the top of his leg that eventually became as hard as a rock. One evening, having decided that he had had enough of it, he squeezed it with all his might. In his own words, ‘A thing like a small cricket ball shot out of my leg and bounced its way across the floor!’ It sounds more like something out of a 1990s science-fiction horror story than pre-war Glasgow, but he recovered where many others had died.