The Real James Herriot

by Jim Wight

  During his regular visits to his relatives in Sunderland, he would stay in Beechwood Terrace with his Auntie Jinny Wilkins. Not only was her home very close to J. J. McDowall’s practice, but she used to attend his surgery with her dog, Bonzo. Alf, at her suggestion, enquired whether it might be possible to obtain some practical experience with him. This request, which was readily agreed to, began a friendship between the two men which would last for many years.

  These were the days before the Veterinary Surgeons Act of 1948 which prohibited the practising of veterinary medicine and surgery by non-qualified people. Prior to this, students could work unsupervised among animals, and McDowall often left Alf to run surgeries single-handed. He wrote a letter to his parents in 1938 from Sunderland:

  ‘Down at the clinic (where Wight is in charge) I had to remove a tumour from a dog aged 12 years and after hacking away for a bit found it was attached to a testicle – so I had to remove the testicle too … a bigger job than I had ever tackled. I can tell you, I wished Mac had been by my side. I sent the dog away with a horrible wound and never expected to see it alive again. But, strange to say, it turned up for dressing two days later, bright and frisky and the wound beautifully clean. I felt immensely bucked up about it.’

  At this stage of his life, while still only a student, he was experiencing the pressures and emotions that typify the veterinary surgeon’s day: the anxious waiting to know whether your patient is going to survive; the joy and satisfaction of a job well done. There can be no doubt that the Veterinary Surgeons Act is a necessary one. It is wrong that inexperienced people should work on animals without adequate supervision, and the Act was passed to protect the interests of the patient. Nevertheless, students in those earlier years certainly gained wonderful experience from being thrown in at the deep end.

  Back in Glasgow, Alf spent most of his time studying. He was now in the ‘home straight’, with only the passing of Medicine and Surgery standing between him and a career as a veterinary surgeon. But it was not all work; some recreation was essential to break the long sessions of swotting he put in, secreted up in his little bedroom in Anniesland Road. He went walking and played tennis as much as he dared, but it was on Saturday nights that he and his friends would go to the cinema or go dancing in the big Glasgow ballrooms.

  On a more cultural note, he frequently went to the theatre with his mother. Glasgow boasted a huge number, and the Regal, La Scala, the Playhouse and the Alhambra were theatres that Alf got to know well. It was here that he acquired not only an appreciation of classical music but, also, considerable knowledge of the subject. One of his greatest memories as a young man was hearing Rachmaninov play his Second Piano Concerto in a Glasgow concert hall. He and his mother who were seated very close to the stage, watched, spellbound, as the great man, crouching like a bear over the keys, played some of the most wonderful music they had ever heard.

  Music a few rungs down the ladder of culture was to be heard at the veterinary college dances at Buccleuch Street on most Friday nights, and Alf regularly attended these throbbing sessions. The governing body of the college needed to turn a blind eye to the dances; if they had not done so, those riotous functions might well have been terminated.

  Alex Taylor heard about the dances and asked if he could attend one. It turned out to be an evening he was never to forget. When Mrs Taylor learned that her son was going to the next vet college dance, she asked Alf, ‘I’ve heard that these occasions can be a wee bit rough, Alf, and I’ve heard that some rather odd women attend them. Now, Alex won’t get into any trouble, will he?’

  He was quick to reassure her. ‘Oh goodness me, no, Mrs Taylor. It’s just a wee bit of a get-together with a few of the lads and then we just stroll up to the college to have a few dances before going off home. Don’t you worry yourself. Alex will be fine, just fine.’

  He did not think it necessary to tell Mrs Taylor that this was also ‘freshers’ night’ which added that little extra spice to the evening’s activities. It began, as usual, in a public house in Glasgow. The place was bulging with students and Alex was soon enjoying himself. The noise was stupendous, with everyone laughing, including Alex, who seemed to be surrounded at all times by red, sweating faces. Any semblance of intelligent conversation soon melted away as the rate of consumption of beer and whisky accelerated.

  Eventually, closing time was rung, and they were evicted noisily onto the city streets. Alex can vaguely remember Alf carrying aloft a lifesize cardboard figure of ‘Johnny Walker’, as the swaying column of students ascended the hill to Buccleuch Street. By this time, Alex’s mouth was hanging open and everything was a blur; it seemed that the whole of Glasgow was revolving before his eyes. The students decided to crash past the officials at the gates of the college to avoid paying the modest entrance fee. This was only partially successful as, in the ensuing fracas, Alex received a massive blow on the chin which laid him out.

  This posed a dilemma for Alf. Here was his best friend whom he had brought to the vet college dance for the first time. It was meant to be a good night out with the lads but, instead, he was pole-axed. What was he going to do with him? It did not help that Alf was in a high state of intoxication himself and in no real condition to help anyone. The serene expression upon Alex’s face led his friend to suspect that the blow he had just received was not entirely responsible for his present condition – but he still had a crisis on his hands.

  Suddenly, he had a burst of inspiration. The dance, as always, was taking place on the upper floor of the veterinary college and, in the yard below, he saw several long boxes filled with wood shavings. These seven-foot long containers had carried a supply of new microscopes and other laboratory equipment. ‘The very thing!’ thought Alf. ‘Let’s put Alex in one of those. He will be comfortable in among the shavings and I can keep an eye on him from up here.’

  With the dubious assistance of several inebriated friends, he dragged the limp form of Alex down the steps to the yard below, his heels drumming rhythmically on the steel stairway. When they reached the chosen box there was a snag – Dominic Boyce was already inside, deeply embedded in the shavings. He was wearing a flat cap, his face a ghastly bluish tinge. One of the students, on seeing the staring, sunken eyeballs, said that Dom must be dead. ‘Don’t worry,’ replied another, ‘he always goes that colour.’

  The second box was also occupied; another student was comfortably in residence, a peaceful half-smile on his sleeping face. Alf began to wonder whether every box would contain a moribund student, but he was in luck. An empty one was eventually found and Alex was lowered gently inside. Having made sure that his old friend was comfortably tucked up amongst the shavings, Alf gave a final glance at the rows of boxes, each containing its silent occupant, before heading to the pulsating noise above on the dance floor.

  Alf remembered little about the rest of the evening, save that he thought the police were involved at some point. Somehow, he and Alex, who had spent the remainder of the evening at peace with the world, found their way home. Alex was relieved that his mother was away at the time but, when she returned a day or two later, she said to him, ‘I believe that you had a good night at the vet dance, Alex.’

  ‘Yes, I had an excellent evening, thank you,’ he replied.

  ‘I know,’ she went on, ‘I read all about it!’

  Not for the first time, the Glasgow veterinary students had made the pages of the press.

  Alf took a number of young ladies to dances in Glasgow but one thing he spoke very little about was his experiences with members of the fairer sex, and consequently there is precious little information about his youthful romances. He definitely had several girlfriends but he had no steady relationships until his final couple of years at college, and these were soon forgotten after he left Glasgow.

  While he still lived in Yoker, he had a soft spot for a young lady called Jean Wilson and went out quite regularly with her during his time at Hillhead, but he was very young and it was never really serious.
Charlotte Clarke was a girl he met while on a Boys’ Brigade weekend, and he kept in touch with her for about a year. He appeared really keen on her, describing her in his diary as ‘The sweetest thing I have ever known.’ This friendship, however, was terminated when Charlotte decided to give him the elbow during his second year at veterinary college. Young Alf was quite upset; he was always a sensitive person and capable of becoming extremely emotionally involved.

  While on one of his camping weekends at Rosneath, he met a girl called Marion Grant. He went out regularly with her throughout his college years, and kept up a correspondence with her after he left Glasgow; in fact, he was still writing to her during his first few months as a qualified veterinary surgeon in Yorkshire. He did not regard this relationship as a particularly serious one, however, as he was seeing someone else at the same time. She was called Nan Elliot and came from Knightswood, not far from where Alf lived in Scotstounhill. This young lady also continued to correspond with Alf long after he left Glasgow.

  He certainly enjoyed female company during his time at the veterinary college but there would be only one deep and lasting relationship in his life, and it was not during his years as a young man in Glasgow.

  In July 1939, Alf Wight sat his final qualifying examinations in Veterinary Medicine and Surgery. He was longing to finish being a student and begin his chosen career but it was not to be; he passed Medicine but failed his Surgery exam. He would have to wait a while longer before leaving the veterinary college.

  This came as a severe blow but it was not that surprising. His anal fistula had struck again and he was very ill in the months preceding the exams. The condition became so painful that he underwent a second operation in the Western Infirmary in Glasgow and, in his words, ‘Had my backside rearranged again!’ He did well to pass in Medicine while carrying such a debilitating condition.

  His friend Jock McDowall, the vet in Sunderland, was full of admiration for him, and wrote to Alf in August 1939: ‘I fully expect you will have had your operation by this time and you’re possibly not feeling too good. I expect the surgeon would make what is commonly called a few heroic gashes in your tender spot. You were unfortunate in getting asked all those questions about the Corpus luteum and Graafian follicles in your oral. I couldn’t have said much myself about the subject. However, it says a whole lot when you sailed through Medicine. By Jove, you must have put in some graft despite not feeling too well; you deserve a medal.’

  His father was very upset when Alf failed his final exam in Surgery. Pop, the eternal pessimist, had never encouraged his son to enter the veterinary profession. He had always believed that Alf was taking a big chance entering a profession where one of its main sources of revenue, the heavy draught horse, was rapidly being replaced by mechanisation, but he still shared his son’s deep disappointment when he failed to qualify.

  For Pop himself, the outlook was better. Although his fish and chip shop business had failed around 1936, he soon found alternative employment, working as a shipyard clerk for Yarrow’s down by the Clyde. Unlike his son, Pop had a good head for figures, with a neat hand and an organised mind; an ideal man for such a job. With the threat of possible war with Germany, the fortunes of the Glasgow shipyards were beginning to pick up as the demand for ships grew, and Pop was enjoying a more secure financial position than he had for many years.

  As Alf began to study for his re-taking of the Surgery exam in December, Pop had even more reason to hope that his son would pass. When Britain and France declared war on Germany in September 1939, Pop knew this could mean his son having to serve his country in the armed forces. The veterinary profession was regarded as a ‘reserved occupation’ – one whose services would be needed at home – and Pop had no desire to see Alf risk his life on foreign fields.

  Alf had few qualms about serving his country if needs be. The recent involvement of the International Brigade in the desperately fought Spanish Civil War, where thousands of young men from Britain and other countries had voluntarily given their lives in the fight against Fascism, had stirred the patriotism of many, and Alf was no exception.

  However, to achieve his full qualification as a veterinary surgeon was his number one priority. Apart from wanting to start work properly, his perpetual dependence upon his parents also worried him. Although their financial position was by no means parlous, he wished to be a burden upon them no longer.

  During that Autumn term of 1939, he felt a little better and worked feverishly to pass this last obstacle. After the exam, he thought he had done well enough, but he still awaited the day of the results with rising tension. That day duly arrived, with Alf one of a large crowd of students jostling for position in front of the notice board, eyes desperately scanning the list for the names of those who had passed. The name of James Alfred Wight was not there. At that moment, he felt only one emotion – despair. Deep, deep despair. He had done his best but he had failed again, and he wondered for how many more years he would have to remain anchored to Buccleuch Street.

  He was about to return home to give his parents the shattering news when a door opened and an official of the college walked out to stick another piece of paper onto the notice board. ‘My apologies, gentlemen!’ he said. ‘There has been a clerical error. Another name is to be added to the list.’

  That name was J. A. Wight.

  As the shaken but immensely relieved young man walked through the streets of Glasgow that day, he felt as if the old college, reluctant to lose another student to the outside world, had made a last despairing snatch at him.

  On 14 December 1939, Alfred Wight officially qualified from Glasgow Veterinary College as a fully-fledged Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. He had taken six and a quarter years to complete a five-year course but, compared to some of the other semi-permanent students, he had attained his goal with admirable speed. He did not leave the college without a twinge of regret. In his introduction to James Herriot’s Dog Stories, he expressed his feelings for his old seat of learning:

  When I qualified and walked out of the door of the college for the last time I felt an acute sense of loss, an awareness of something good gone forever. Some of my happiest years were spent in that seedy old building and though my veterinary course was out of date and inefficient in many ways, there was a carefree, easy-going charm about that whole time which has held it in my mind in a golden glow.

  The young Alf Wight emerged from Glasgow Veterinary College a much wiser man. He had absorbed a huge amount of information but his learning curve had only just begun. It was one that would never end.

  Chapter Seven

  During that final term, Alf had had an incentive to work extra hard. For many of his friends who had qualified with him, their troubles were only just beginning as the daunting prospect of trying to find a job loomed before them. For James Alfred Wight MRCVS, however, things were a little different. He had a job waiting for him. The town of his birth had beckoned him back; he was to be assistant to J. J. McDowall MRCVS of 1 Thornhill Terrace, Sunderland.

  It is a widely-held belief that the real James Herriot launched out on his professional career as assistant to ‘Siegfried Farnon’ in the Yorkshire Dales. Indeed, the author himself leads us to believe this; nowhere in his books is there any reference to his being employed anywhere other than in that magical part of Yorkshire that he would make so famous.

  His first job, in fact, was in Sunderland and, although he spent barely six months in the employment of McDowall, it was an eventful period in his life, so much so that several chapters in the early Herriot books are based upon people and incidents from that seminal stage of the young man’s career.

  Alf learned a great deal in that time, much of which he was never to forget. J. J. McDowall was an experienced and clever man, well-versed in the ‘art’ as well as the ‘science’ of veterinary medicine, and Alf soon realised that the ‘art’ was every bit as, if not more important than, the ‘science’.

  As he travelled south to wo
rk in his first position as a qualified veterinary surgeon on that day in January 1940, he knew for certain that he was an extremely fortunate young man. He was walking straight into a job while many of his friends had either failed their exams or, having qualified, had little prospect of employment for the foreseeable future. These were awful days for newly-qualified veterinary surgeons. The depression had meant that jobs were scarce, and working conditions primitive. Those applying for what jobs existed were regarded as lower forms of life to whom prospective employers could dictate their own terms. For those managing to obtain employment, poor pay with long hours was all they could expect; indeed, in many cases, time off work was unheard of.

  The situation was so dire that some young men advertised in the Veterinary Record, the official journal of the British Veterinary Association, offering their services free of charge. ‘Fit, strong, able young man. Will work for keep’ became a common sight in the advertising pages of the journal, and many of Alf’s friends ‘worked for their keep’ in those hard days. For an employer, it was an attractive proposition: feed a man, put a roof over his head and he’ll work for you for nothing.

  The prospective assistant today faces a vastly different picture. With plenty of jobs available, the new graduate can afford to be selective. Good pay, civilised working conditions with ample leisure time – in some cases with no night duties to be undertaken at all – go towards presenting the young veterinary surgeon with an enviable choice. What a stark contrast to those bleak conditions years ago.

  Alf wrote in a letter to his parents while in Sunderland: ‘I had a very funny letter from Bob Smith. He is still working on the land, poor lad, and is fed up but still maintains his dry humour. He says that when he puts his height in when applying for the jobs advertised in the Record, he adds an inch every time, but though he is now 6 ft 8 ins it doesn’t weigh the scales!’