The Real James Herriot

by Jim Wight

  His resolve in following Gayelord Hauser’s regime was further tested on the days when he followed another of the guru’s recommendations – that of having a ‘fruit day’. This was a day when nothing but fruit was to be eaten, the idea being to ‘cleanse and detoxify’ the system. He would return for his lunch, famished after a morning around the farms, to sit down to a couple of apples and an orange while his family around him devoured plates of roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and potatoes, all smothered in rich brown gravy. I used to think that my mother gleaned satisfaction out of torturing him by producing these mouthwatering meals on his ‘fruit days’. He, of course, cracked under the pressure and was soon joining the rest of us among our lakes of gravy.

  Another craze he undertook in 1958 was the playing of the violin. He had always loved listening to music, and had joined the Thirsk and District Music Society the previous year, but now he decided that he would like to play.

  The violin was always Alf’s favourite instrument. He had all the great violin concertos on record, and admired in particular the famous performers like Alfredo Campoli and Jaschia Heifitz. Many years later, as James Herriot, he appeared on the radio show, ‘Desert Island Discs’. He had no hesitation in choosing as his all-time favourite, the Violin Concerto by Elgar.

  His excursion into violin playing lasted for two to three years. He played with Steve King, headmaster at the local school, and through their common love of music and sport, they became good friends. Steve played the cello and the two spent many hours playing duets as well as performing in the local school orchestra. Alf wrote to his parents in 1958 about his new hobby:

  ‘The old fiddle is progressing fast and I have improved out of all recognition. I am now nearly as good as those poor blokes you hear in the streets. But I do love it! I grab the instrument at every opportunity and it is funny how quickly the room empties after I start sawing.’

  He did not progress much further with the violin and he received little encouragement from his family. The violin needs to be played very well to sound acceptable, and there were some very scratchy sessions around the fireside on those winter evenings. With the veterinary practice becoming increasingly busy, it was hard to find the time to devote to his hobby and, although he enjoyed his short association with the instrument, it finally scraped to a halt in 1960.

  For Alf, the 1950s were years of enjoyment and satisfaction but towards the end of that decade, a darker period was beginning. It gradually worsened, almost unnoticed, but an event in 1960 would precipitate him into the abyss of a nervous breakdown that lasted for almost two years. It would be the only period of my life when I could say I had a father I hardly knew.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Friday 8 April 1960 began happily for Alf Wight. With his friend, Guy Rob, he left Thirsk for the international football match between Scotland and England at Hampden Park in Glasgow, to which they would be accompanied by his father. These visits were enjoyable and relaxing occasions. Alf would not only have the pleasure of seeing his parents again, he would be able to talk football with Pop, always one of their favourite topics of conversation.

  The letters that Pop wrote to Alf and Joan invariably began with the formalities of asking after the family, telling in a short sentence or two how he and Granny Wight were faring – the remainder consisting of long accounts of football matches, views on the state of Sunderland AFC, or his latest opinions on the England cricket team. They radiated the words of a sports fanatic, and Alf’s letters to his parents, although not quite so heavily weighted, were in a similar vein. Joan would read the first couple of lines of Pop’s letters, but on seeing the start of a three- or four-page report of a match between Rangers and Celtic, would then hand the rest over to her husband.

  His son’s visits to Glasgow were the highlight of Pop’s year and they were equally enjoyed by Alf who never tired of his father’s company.

  But that day in 1960 was to be a tragic one. On arrival at his parents’ home in Anniesland Road, Alf was horrified to see a hearse outside the door. His father had died suddenly of a heart attack while he and Guy were en route from Thirsk. Instead of enjoying the great atmosphere of an England v Scotland match, he found himself making funeral arrangements, while poor Guy Rob caught the next train home.

  This unexpected and shocking experience was a body blow – one that was to have devastating consequences. He had lost someone he loved dearly and, for more than a year afterwards, his emotions would carry him downhill into a state of deep and serious depression.

  My mother, Rosie and I travelled to Glasgow for Pop’s funeral and I remember the look on my father’s face at the Maryhill Crematorium. He appeared to be completely bewildered, bravely fighting back tears, while all around him, people, myself included, were crying at the loss of someone we all loved. The emotional pressure on him at the time must have been incredible.

  In a letter to his mother shortly after his father’s death, he tried to raise her spirits while expressing his own feelings: ‘I know how he must be filling your thoughts and of the awful emptiness you feel. I feel it too, as you will know. But, you know, I feel now a kind of companionship with Pop. When something comes up about football or anything else in which we were both interested, I feel I am discussing it mentally with him. These things are all a closed book to us but what is certain is that the love and the memories never die and are a comfort to those who are left.’

  It is not surprising that Pop’s sudden and shocking death hit Alf so hard; there was a tremendous bond of friendship and affection between the two men. Pop’s death was a blow to me, too. I was seventeen at the time, and in September of the following year was due to stay with my grandparents at Anniesland Road while I attended the Glasgow University Veterinary School. One of my greatest regrets is that Pop was not there to share my university days – but it was much sadder that he was not alive to see the wonderful achievements of his son as a writer. He would have been a very proud man indeed, and no one would have devoured his books more avidly, or appreciated the skill of James Herriot more than Pop.

  He would also have been proud to watch his son receive so many tributes from all over the world. Alf, too, had regrets that Pop never had the opportunity to read his work, but he thought that there was one tribute that his father would have been particularly pleased about.

  One day, more than thirty years later, at the time when his fame and popularity were at their height, he was walking with Alex Taylor and they were talking about Alf’s recent distinction of being made Honorary President of Sunderland Football Club. ‘You know, Alex,’ he said, ‘old Pop would have loved to see my literary success but he would have considered this to be my greatest achievement!’

  Pop’s sudden death was the catalyst for sending Alf Wight spiralling into a nervous breakdown but it was not solely responsible; he had been deteriorating emotionally for some time before that event. Nervous breakdowns can be very difficult to understand and, in his case, there were many factors involved.

  In some respects, Alf was ideal ‘nervous breakdown material’. Following his recovery, people used to say to me, ‘I’m surprised that your dad had a breakdown. He always seemed so calm and never seemed to let anything worry him.’ This explains a great deal. He did seem to be in control of a situation but he was a man who hid his emotions – someone who would bottle things up rather than openly discuss his feelings with others.

  He was a worrier, a private man who rarely allowed his deeper thoughts to surface. He worried about Joan and her slavish attitude to housework. He worried about Rosie and me, and whether he had done enough for us. He fretted about his parents; with Pop’s job in the office not always secure, would they manage to cope if he was out of work? As he observed the slow but steady disappearance of grazing land around Thirsk, he began to feel concerns not only for the future of the practice, but for that of the veterinary profession in general. In years to come, would people still be getting up at ungodly hours to milk cows or would some clever perso
n produce artificial milk more easily and cheaply? With no capital behind him, he depended entirely on the financial success of his business. Towards the end of the 1950s, when there were some rumblings of discontent among the assistants, he took on the responsibility of dealing with them with little help from anyone else. He did not discuss any of these problems with his family; his selfless nature decreed that he shared his secret hopes and fears with no one.

  One thing that haunted him throughout the latter part of the 1950s was his children’s education. My sister and I were attending the local school, despite my father’s fervent wish that we should receive private education. His own parents had made sacrifices to send him to a fee-paying school and, deep down, he blamed himself for failing to give us a similar opportunity.

  Having privately educated us throughout our primary years at Ivy Dene school, my father had been prepared to carry on paying tuition fees throughout our higher school years, but my mother had had other ideas. She was adamant that we were to be educated in Thirsk and her argument was strengthened by the fact that he would have been hard-pressed to find the money to pay private school fees. He could have afforded it by stretching his finances to the limit, and not to do so only compounded his feelings of guilt.

  All this should never have concerned him. Thirsk Grammar Modern School, superbly run by the headmaster, my father’s friend Steve King, achieved remarkable academic results for such a small school. The high standard of teaching, allied to tight discipline, ensured that Rosie and I received a wonderful education but, despite our success there, my father still had that nagging doubt; had he done all he could for us?

  His veterinary colleagues, Donald Sinclair and Gordon Rae, sent their children to fee-paying schools, as did many people of means in the Thirsk area. It seemed to him that he was one of the few men of professional status who used the local school. What if we failed to achieve? Would he ever forgive himself?

  He watched our education very closely and when I fell behind in my second year I remember receiving a severe lecture from him. I think that, had I not pulled myself together and improved dramatically the following year, he would have bartered his soul to send me away to school.

  Our education was not the only cause of his concern for our well-being. In those days, the possession of a dialect was regarded as a stigma; it could be a hindrance to progress in one’s chosen profession. As a Yorkshire boy who spent his time with other Yorkshire lads, I developed an accent – one that worried my father so much that he sent Rosie and me to elocution classes in the nearby town of Ripon. My father was convinced that it was doing me good but I hated every minute; I made no progress, and he eventually conceded defeat. Things have now changed, with the possession of a dialect, quite rightly, no longer frowned upon but, in those days, he was convinced that my Yorkshire accent would hold me back. It was just another example of his determination to do everything within his power to ensure that he gave us a good start in life.

  His concerns for the welfare of others did not stop with his immediate family. Since the day he qualified from Glasgow Veterinary College in 1939, Alfred Wight had carried the burden of the belief that he owed his parents a debt he would never be able to repay. From his very first poverty-stricken days as a young veterinary surgeon, he had not only regularly sent money to his parents, but had written to them conscientiously every week as well as visiting them, without fail, several times every year. His devotion to his parents was admirable, but it had its price.

  In the years following his recovery from depression, Alf would realise just how much those feelings of having to repay his parents had affected him. I well remember the day of my graduation from the University of Glasgow Veterinary School in 1966. My mother and father, who had come up for the occasion, were staying with us in my grandmother’s home in Anniesland Road. We were enjoying a celebratory drink when my grandmother said to me, ‘Jim, never forget that you owe your father a great deal. He has made sacrifices for you. You owe him everything!’

  I shall never forget the expression on my father’s face, nor his comments to me immediately afterwards. He led me into another room.

  ‘You owe me nothing! Do you understand? Absolutely nothing!’ He spoke with an intensity that I found a little unnerving. Having known him so long as such a reserved and mild-mannered man, it was a new experience to hear him speak to me so directly. I did, indeed, consider that I owed him a great deal and said as much to him.

  He paused for a second, without taking his eyes from mine. ‘You owe me – and your mother – nothing!’ He said no more.

  As his illness worsened throughout 1960, I noticed my father begin to exhibit subtle changes in his behaviour as he imagined his darkest fears beginning to assume threatening proportions. One of the worst was his concern that my mother was interested in other men.

  I remember my mother at the time as an attractive and – when in the mood – flirtatious lady who was, without doubt, popular among my father’s many friends and acquaintances. He had, from their very first meeting in 1941, been totally besotted by her, and his imagining that she could possibly forsake him for another, was, I feel sure, a factor in contributing towards his illness. I remember him being distinctly unfriendly towards a man he thought was paying too much attention to her. This was not like the man I knew.

  This period, when I was in the sixth form at school, was the only time that I felt distanced from him. He was continually pressurising me to comb my hair, shave regularly, speak properly and generally behave in a manner he thought appropriate. I felt that my father was needlessly dogging my every move and I resented it. My busy days at school helped in taking my mind off the problem and he, too, was working hard in the practice, with the result that we never openly fell out, but there was, for the first time in our lives, a gulf between us. I did not fully realise it at the time but I was observing a man who was treading on the brink of a total nervous collapse, carrying the worries of the world on his shoulders.

  In the early summer of 1960, when his illness appeared to be worsening by the day, Joan, on advice from the doctor, took him to York for psychiatric treatment. It was a very hard time for her. She had to cope with a husband who was undergoing a gradual personality change, but she stood by him – despite some unreasonable behaviour that was totally unlike the man that she had married. He seemed to become hypercritical of her – just as he was of me – but she bore it all with fortitude. I remember feeling great admiration for her. I was old enough to know that there was something seriously wrong with my father as I tried to imagine the strain that she was under.

  As a result of the electroconvulsive therapy he was receiving, his memory began to desert him. On the occasion of Rosie’s birthday, we all went to the cinema in Ripon to see a Walt Disney film, The White Wilderness. My father seemed to enjoy the film but when I mentioned it to him next morning over breakfast, he looked at me as if in a dream. His eyes appeared to be focused on a point several miles behind my head.

  ‘Film? What film?’ he said. He had no recollection of the previous evening.

  It has been suggested that repeated attacks of ‘undulant fever’ were responsible for Alf’s depression. This was contracted through treating cattle with Brucellosis, a disease that was rife in the dairy herds of Britain in those days – causing abortion and stillbirths in cows and heifers. In common with many others in his profession, Alf removed diseased afterbirths from hundreds of affected animals, which resulted in his developing, on more than one occasion, symptoms of high fever and delirium. At such times, he took to his bed for days.

  This disease has been described as a depressive one but it seemed to have the opposite effect on Alf. He became light-headed and happy, lying in bed while cracking jokes to which he, himself, would respond with wild and hysterical laughter, often listened to with ill-concealed amusement by his children. Years later, he was to write a chapter in Every Living Thing, in which he described the unusual symptoms that he experienced. These attacks were very short-
lived and he always returned to work quickly. Fortunately, he did not suffer any long-term effects from the disease – unlike many of his professional colleagues who developed such symptoms as crippling arthritis or severe and lasting depression. It is difficult to disregard Brucellosis entirely as a contributory factor towards Alf’s illness, but it cannot be held solely responsible for pitching his emotions into such a grievous turmoil. The causes were far more complex than that.

  Despite his marked deterioration following Pop’s death, he managed to hide his depression from others, with his colleagues at work having little idea that there was anything wrong. He put a brave face on everything but there were times when even he could not conceal the effects of his illness from his family.

  In October 1960, he took Rosie with him to visit his mother in Glasgow. As they approached the city, quite suddenly he seized his young daughter’s hand and held it tightly to the gearstick of the car. She was only thirteen years old at the time but she can still remember the look of tension on her father’s face, holding her hand in a vice-like grip as he approached his mother’s home. Was the memory of his father’s death too much to bear or was there an inherent fear of his mother that was coming to the surface? After he recovered from his breakdown, he was to adopt a far more relaxed approach to his mother but as he drew near to his old home that day, Rosie’s hand firmly in his own, there were certainly some very powerful and devastating emotions within him.

  To his eternal credit, however, he kept his feelings from us as much as he could and, reading the letters he sent to his mother, there is no hint of the upheaval within his mind. He fought his illness in the only way he knew – he kept working. The practice was thriving and, thanks to the increase in TB Testing work, three assistants were working there through most of 1960. In the spring of 1961, however, two of them left. It was at a time when my father was very low and he found himself having to revert to night work again, working as hard as he had ever done in his life. This was probably therapeutic and helped take his mind off his escalating worries.