The Real James Herriot

by Jim Wight

  As well as the TB Testing in the Dales, the practice at Thirsk was always busy and it was here one evening that Alf and Eddie received a lesson in the up-and-down fortunes of the veterinary surgeon’s life that they were never to forget.

  They were called to a calving at Knayton, a village near Thirsk, and arrived full of enthusiasm. A calving is a dramatic event, with success boosting a new veterinary surgeon’s reputation. On the other hand, should things turn out badly, the vet could have a mountain to climb, re-establishing his image.

  Alf stripped to the waist and inserted his arm into the cow. His confidence drained away within seconds. He could feel only a large mass of hair and bone. There were no legs, no feet and no head. Was this a calf? What else could it be? He explored the mysterious depths of the cow, trying desperately to find something that was familiar, but there was only the huge hairy ball of tissue lodged firmly within the pelvis of the cow. He grappled with the nameless lump for a while longer before turning to his friend. ‘Edward, would you care to feel this for me?’

  ‘Certainly, Alf,’ replied Eddie, stepping forward confidently.

  Alf’s expectations of a successful calving began to sink even lower as he watched the wriggling figure behind the cow, the face set in grim determination. Eddie, too, was obviously finding this a challenge. He eventually withdrew his arm and spoke.

  ‘I think you had better have another feel, Alf,’ he said. ‘It is a rather strange case.’

  Alf resumed the struggle, his mind in a turmoil. Whatever this thing was, it was not going to come out. These were the days before Caesarean section was an option; the ‘calf’ – or whatever else it might be – had to be extracted out of the passage that nature intended. There was no other route. What was he to do? An important quality of a good veterinary surgeon is the ability to make a firm decision; it is of little use procrastinating in periods of crisis. He had to do something, and he did.

  He turned to the farmer and said in as steady a voice as he could muster, ‘I am afraid that what we have here is the uncalvable cow. It could kill her to take this huge calf out of her but if you slaughter her as quickly as possible, she will dress out well and you should receive a reasonable price for her carcass.’ Such confidently spoken words belied his inwardly seething emotions.

  The farmer was staring blankly at Alf when suddenly a voice broke the oppressive silence in the gloomy cow byre. ‘Ah’ll ’ave a go!’ Another man had silently drifted in to observe the proceedings, a heavy-set, lugubrious individual who had been observing the contortions of the two young men with apparent indifference. The farmer seemed agreeable, and Eddie and Alf were in no position to argue. The man rolled up his sleeves, took out an old knife and, with it carefully covered by his hand, inserted his arm in the cow’s vagina and set to work.

  To the two young vets, the next hour or so seemed like days as this man produced a decomposing calf, bit by bit, out of the cow until, finally, the result of his labours lay in shreds on the cow byre floor, relieving the exhausted cow of her unwanted burden. He had succeeded where the veterinary surgeons had failed.

  Eddie and Alf muttered their thanks before slinking out of the byre and rattling off down the country road back to Thirsk. The shame was overwhelming. They were so demoralised that nothing was said for a long time, but eventually Eddie broke the silence with a remark that my father would never forgot.

  ‘The ruin of two promising careers, Alf!’ he said, staring gloomily out of the old cracked windscreen.

  ‘Aye, Eddie, you’re probably right,’ he replied. ‘News travels fast round here – especially bad news. Oh, they’re going to love this! The farmer had to do the vet’s job! They’ll be shouting it from the roof tops! This’ll be all over Yorkshire by tomorrow!’

  The following few days were misery as they waited for some reaction from the farming community – but there was none. They began to think that the whole episode had been just a terrible nightmare, but they still dreaded a call to anywhere within a mile or two of the disaster. They soon got one. They were called to a neighbouring farm to see a cow and they braced themselves for an uncomfortable visit.

  It was not long before the farmer resurrected the painful incident. ‘Me neighbour was tellin’ me about you two young fellers,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes?’ replied Alf, ready to hear the worst.

  ‘’E’s right upset about that calvin’ job ’e ’ad done t’other night, Ah can tell yer!’

  ‘I bet he is!’

  ‘Aye, ’e’s right brassed off about it, like.’

  There was an embarrassing silence before the farmer spoke again. ‘’E should never a’ let that daft bugger kill ’is cow wi’ cuttin’ that calf away wi’ that knife!’

  Alf and Eddie stared at the farmer. Alf broke the silence. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Aye,’ continued the farmer. ‘’E wished ’e’d listened to you lads! If ’e’d ’ad’t cow slaughtered like you said, ’e’d a’ made a bit o’ money on’t carcass. Cow died afore you lads were out o’ t’ yard. Now ’e ’as nowt. ’E’s right upset ower’t job Ah can tell ther! ’E thinks a bit about you lads! ’E’ll listen to’t vet in future!’

  A warm feeling began to flow over the two young men. They had had a taste of the fluctuating emotions experienced by every veterinary surgeon. They both told me that story in my student years, and each gave me the same words of encouragement. ‘Whenever you think that all is gloom and despair, never forget that there is always another day!’

  The ability to make a decision was one of Alfred Wight’s strengths as a veterinary surgeon. He made the right decision in that cow shed all those years ago, and he would continue to make many more throughout his professional life.

  In November 1940, Sinclair and Wight were reunited. Donald suddenly returned from the Royal Air Force which meant that Eddie had to leave but, before he did, Alf wrote, on his behalf, letters of application for various jobs that were advertised. Even way back in those early years, Eddie was grateful for his friend’s flair as a writer of letters; he was offered a job in Colne very soon afterwards.

  Eddie Straiton was immensely grateful and the opportunity to repay his friend’s generosity would, in fact, arise more than twenty years later.

  Although Donald had, in fact, been thrown out of the Royal Air Force, he had half expected it. In order to join, he had lied about his age, but it was his less than satisfactory reflexes while undergoing flying instruction that had been his undoing. When the authorities discovered he was approaching thirty, they reviewed his case and decided to send him home. The fact that he was a veterinary surgeon, a profession regarded as a ‘reserved occupation’, had done little to help his cause.

  His response to this rejection was to attack the work in the practice like a man possessed. It was as well that he was in this mood as the practice was becoming busier by the day, with both men working flat out. Some ‘help’, however, was soon to be on the way.

  Eddie Straiton’s father had a car for sale which Donald decided to buy. He turned to Alf one day. ‘Alfred, I want you to go up to Glasgow to get that car. While you are there, take a day or two off to see your mother and father and, on the way back, will you pick up my brother from the veterinary college and bring him here for the Christmas vacation? The young bugger is in his third year now and has probably failed his exams again! God help him if he has!’

  Alf Wight was about to meet Brian Sinclair, a man who would become a dear and lifelong friend. The man he would immortalise, many years later, as Tristan Farnon, was about to enter into the life of Alfred Wight.

  Chapter Nine

  Brian Sinclair strode into Alf Wight’s life like a breath of fresh air. Photographs taken of him in the 1940s reveal a lively, humorous face, one that must have been a great tonic to the over-worked and poverty-stricken young vet. Alf had been in Thirsk only a few months but already he was beginning to feel like a veteran; Brian’s arrival added a refreshing twist to his daily routine.

 
Brian was not at all like his elder brother in appearance. He was shorter and plumper with an oval face that looked as though it was about to crack with laughter at any moment. This open and honest face portrayed the true character of the man behind it; Brian Sinclair spent a large proportion of his life laughing and Alf would spend many an hour laughing with him.

  The descriptions of Brian and his escapades in the early James Herriot books give a vivid account of life in 23 Kirkgate at that time. Alf, Donald and Brian, when he was on vacation from veterinary college, all lived together in the Kirkgate house, placing Alf in the company of two of the richest characters he had ever met. The ongoing love-hate relationship between the brothers would provide wonderful material for his books, with the antics of the pair of them figuring prominently in the early volumes.

  It was all the funnier as Donald very rarely saw the amusing side of the tense exchanges between himself and Brian – and with good reason. He felt a responsibility towards the welfare of his younger brother. This included the funding of his education, but Brian was not the world’s most diligent student; he failed his exams regularly, leaving Donald severely out of pocket. The explosive and, in many cases, justified blasts at Brian from his frustrated brother, are accurately chronicled in the early Herriot books.

  When Alf was writing his first book in the 1960s, he consulted with Brian at length to ensure that these incidents were authentically reproduced. A draft typescript of the first book, If Only They Could Talk, contains several inserts and rough scribblings on many of the pages, one chapter of which caught my eye.

  It was the one describing the episode when Tristan wrecked his brother’s car, despite dire warnings to be careful from Siegfried who was prostrate in bed with flu. Tristan eventually summoned up the courage to explain to Siegfried that his beloved Bentley had had a ‘minor’ accident, resulting in a smashed wing and the complete absence of two of its doors. There was a terrible silence while the elder brother absorbed the bad tidings. Suddenly, and with a superhuman effort, he sat bolt upright and screamed wildly into Tristan’s face, before collapsing back exhausted on the bed.

  On the relevant page of this manuscript, Brian’s unmistakable scrawl is next to my father’s description of the incident. It reads: ‘He said, “You bloody fool! You’re sacked!”’

  When Brian returned from Glasgow on that day in December 1940 to break the news to his brother that he had failed Pathology and only ‘done all right’ in Parasitology, he received the verbal battering from Donald that he was expecting. Brian’s fun-loving and carefree approach to life continued unabated despite suffering considerable discomfort while under the lash from Donald who treated him at times with complete disdain.

  Alf remembered seeing a curt message on the mantelpiece once that simply read, ‘Brian! Go home! Donald.’ On another occasion, Alf and Brian walked into the kitchen one morning where Donald was frying three eggs for breakfast. He turned casually to his brother with the words, ‘Your egg’s broken!’

  Shortly after meeting Brian Sinclair for the first time, Alf began to wonder what his contribution would be towards the running of the practice. Donald, who tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to instil the work ethic into his young brother, took it out on Brian by giving him all the worst deals that were going. It soon became clear that he was a factotum – somebody who was supposed to dispense and deliver medicines, wash the cars, dig the garden, answer the phone, keep the books and even, in an emergency, go to a case.

  At least, this was how Donald saw his function, but Brian had other ideas. He devoted his whole time to enjoying himself, regarding all kinds of physical activity with abhorrence; in fact, his whole life seemed to be geared to the cause of doing as little as possible. This, he largely achieved – spending many long and happy hours sitting in a chair doing crosswords, smoking interminable numbers of Woodbines, or simply snoozing peacefully. He was rousted into activity by his brother on occasion but, by and large, Brian had a pretty easy time in the old house. When not reclining in his favourite chair, he could be found conversing effortlessly in the local public houses or carrying out practical jokes on anyone who was unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity at the time. This frequently happened to be Alf and very few weeks went by without his being the victim of one or two mischievous pranks.

  Brian, who could imitate a wide range of different voices, frequently brought beads of perspiration to Alf’s brow as he mimicked farmers calling him out to horrendous cases – always, of course, on a dark and filthy night. Alf never forgot the classic call from a farmer with the rough Yorkshire voice growling down the phone. ‘Is that t’vitinry? This is Keel, Hesketh Grange. I ’ave a big ’oss as wants stitchin’ up. Cut ’isself right bad on’t back leg. ’E’s a nasty devil an’ all!’ Brian allowed Alf to sweat a while before laughingly revealing his true identity.

  Many times, Alf would attempt to turn the tables on Brian. He would go to great lengths to disguise his voice, ringing him at all hours of the day or night, but the young joker was almost invariably too clever for him. One night, having just returned home from a late call, Alf received one of the worst frights of his life. There was a bright moon shining into his bedroom and, as he started to undress he saw, to his horror, the naked figure of a man silhouetted against the window. The moonlight shining behind the apparition added to the terrifying effect.

  ‘Who, in God’s name, is that?’ he croaked, his heart thumping wildly.

  The figure took an eternity to reply. Eventually, there was a sinister and sepulchral response, ‘B–r–i–a–n!’

  It is surprising that the young Alf Wight managed to carry out his daily work with such a prankster at large, but he was not the only one to feel the sharp sting of Brian’s many jokes. Although renowned for his ability to exist happily doing nothing, Brian could throw his heart and soul into anything that interested him, and he certainly put everything into developing the reputation of the ‘Pannal Ghost’.

  This eerie figure, clothed in white sheets, was famous at the time and on moonlit nights could be seen gliding across the road at the top of Pannal Bank near Harrogate. Terrified motorists would perform lightning U-turns in the road before speeding away in the opposite direction – to the glee of the laughing ghost, none other than Brian himself.

  One night, however, two motorcyclists, rather than fleeing, decided to give chase. This unexpected turn of events, which took the ghost completely by surprise, resulted in his taking off at high speed over a succession of ploughed fields with the motorcyclists in hot pursuit. Unused as he was to hard physical exercise, this desperate chase – in which he was encumbered by yards of flapping white material – was a most disagreeable experience. He made his escape by hiding in a huge drainage pipe that stank of tom cats, and it was while he was lying trembling in his refuge, with an icy wind screaming down the pipe, that he came to a firm decision: the ‘Pannal Ghost’ would be seen no more.

  One of the chapters in Let Sleeping Vets Lie is about the ‘Raynes Ghost’, and is based on this incident.

  Brian had a repertoire of party tricks which, when in the mood, he would perform with wild abandon. His favourite was the ‘Mad Conductor’ – also well described in one of the Herriot books – but another, that was not so well known but equally dramatic, was his imitation of ‘Donald drinking the Universal Cattle Medicine’. Alf would often recall this incident as a prime example of the erratic behaviour of his senior partner.

  When returning late from a call one evening, Alf was walking down the long garden behind 23 Kirkgate. It was very dark, the rain was pouring down, and he was just about to enter the house when he heard a soft rustling from the bed of nasturtiums at the side of the path. On closer inspection, he saw in the dim light what appeared to be a pile of sacking. As he tentatively poked it with his shoe, the shadowy mass twitched and groaned. Something, or someone, was deep in the flower bed.

  ‘Who on earth is that?’ he asked, peering down at the shapeless heap. There was a moment of sile
nce save for the drumming of the rain. There then followed another groan as the mysterious form began to writhe in the darkness.

  At this point, the door burst open and Brian appeared. ‘Thank goodness you’re back, Alf,’ he said. ‘Give me a hand and let’s get him inside!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Donald!’

  ‘Donald?’ The mysterious heap was none other than his senior partner. ‘What the devil is wrong with him?’ he asked. ‘He sounds as though he is dying!’

  ‘He deserves to!’ went on Brian. ‘He has just swigged about half a bottle of Universal Cattle Medicine.’

  Brian was laughing but Alf was more than a little alarmed. He could hardly believe his ears. Universal Cattle Medicine (U.C.M.) was a savage concoction that was used to combat a wide range of bovine diseases and supposedly had stimulant properties. It consisted, among other things, of arsenic and ammonia, with the dose for a large cow, about two dessertspoonfuls. It was a brave man who sniffed the top of the bottle, let alone sampled its contents. Cows, on being drenched with this mixture, coughed and spluttered for several minutes, but it seemed to work in many cases. This venerable liquid was indicated to be for the treatment of ‘coughs, chills, scours, pneumonia, milk fever, garget, and all forms of indigestion’. Whenever the veterinary surgeon was mystified by a case, there was always good old U.C.M. to fall back on. The early practice ledgers are full of references to it; Sinclair and Wight sold gallons of the stuff.

  It was a stimulant, without doubt, and it had certainly stimulated Donald Sinclair. The two men carted him inside and laid him on the sofa in the living-room. Brian then gave Alf an account of what had happened.

  Donald, on returning from a night out and in an inebriated condition, had decided that some ‘medication’ might make him feel a little better. He had swaggered into the little dispensary, seized a bottle of U.C.M, and bitten off the cork. He had turned to his brother with a devilish smile and, before Brian could stop him, had gulped several mouthfuls of the powerful liquid. There had been a brief, still moment as the dark mixture scorched its way down his gullet. Donald then leapt convulsively into the air with his hands clasped tightly round his throat. Staggering out into the garden, he had collapsed with a hoarse cry into the huge bed of rambling nasturtiums, his legs twitching rhythmically. It was after the jerking body had become still that Brian had decided to run inside to call the doctor.