The Real James Herriot

by Jim Wight

  He was finding that fame can bring its own problems but he accepted this quite calmly. I remember his handing me a strange letter from a displeased reader. After I had finished reading it, he gave me a resigned smile with the words, ‘You can’t win ’em all, boy!’

  Such sharp little wounds to his ego, however, were few and far between as his popularity continued to accelerate throughout the 1970s but, despite this, Alf continued to maintain as low a profile as possible, politely but firmly declining all the many invitations to revisit the United States. Ironically, it was his friends and family who gleaned far more enjoyment and satisfaction from holidays there.

  In the late 1970s, Brian Sinclair – who was now famous as Tristan – toured America on several occasions, speaking about his friend James Herriot. He received wonderful hospitality from his hosts, many of whom were veterinarians, like himself. Brian used to meet Alf regularly in those days, regaling him with stories about his American experiences, and Alf would rarely return from these meetings without another humorous anecdote.

  One of his favourite memories was that of Brian recounting a social occasion at which there was a Scotsman dressed in full Highland regalia. He was wearing a magnificent kilt, hanging in front of which was a highly-coloured, hairy sporran. This splendid human being was approached by a pleasantly inebriated woman. She had heard of the mysteries that lurked beneath a Scotsman’s kilt and was fascinated by the dangling sporran. She pointed at it unsteadily and, in a slurred voice, said, ‘Now tell me, truthfully, what exactly do you carry in your scrotum?!’

  It was not only Brian, but many other friends, who benefited from the high regard in which Alf was held in America. On trips over there, whenever they mentioned that they were from Yorkshire, the name of James Herriot almost invariably arose. It was one that bonded many friendships across the Atlantic.

  Tom McCormack and Alfred Ames – two men who played vital parts in helping Alf to his success – were held in very high esteem by the family. Tom and his wife Sandra met Alf and Joan several times over the years during their frequent visits to Great Britain, while the Alfreds – Ames and Wight – and their wives were to meet in Yorkshire in August 1988. That vital and influential review in the Chicago Tribune so many years before remained fresh in the minds of both men.

  Alf Wight was a man who always appreciated those who had helped him and, in return, Tom McCormack never forgot the Yorkshire vet whose writing helped put his firm back on a safe footing. In October 1995, eight months after Alf’s death, he and Sandra made the special journey from America to pay their respects at the memorial service in York Minster. It was to be his final gesture towards the author to whom he said, all those years ago in 1973, ‘Beyond the money, you do bring Sandra and me a personal pride unmatched by anyone else we publish. You are exactly the kind of man one comes into publishing for.’

  Despite fans from all over the world thronging the waiting-room at 23 Kirkgate, Alf never allowed this world-wide adulation to unseat his sense of priorities. He had been twice to America where he had been treated like a hero. He was an international celebrity, with his financial worries now behind him, but he was still exactly the same man that I had always known. Not only did he speak very little about his achievements, but his attitude to his family, friends and local people remained completely unchanged.

  Around 1977, I remember approaching him for some advice about a problem in the practice. I apologised and said, ‘I shouldn’t really be bothering you with this, Dad. You are a best-selling author now. You shouldn’t have to worry about the practice any more.’

  He replied swiftly, ‘I don’t care how many million books I have sold, the welfare of this practice will always be more important to me!’

  The explosion of publicity surrounding his literary success was beyond anything that any of us could have imagined but, during those exciting years of the 1970s, he was still, first and foremost, a family man and a veterinary surgeon.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  A period of ten years had seen a dramatic upturn in the fortunes of Alfred Wight. The 1970s opened with the publication of his first book, followed by undreamed-of success and subsequent financial security. The beginning of the previous decade had started with the sudden death of his father, succeeded by a period of nervous exhaustion and escalating worry. There is little wonder he frequently referred to that period of his life as the ‘horrible sixties’.

  I asked him one day how he thought his life would have turned out had he not been so successful as an author.

  ‘I would have carried on working full time,’ he replied. ‘I had a modest pension on the go, lots of little insurance policies and would probably have sold the house to buy a bungalow somewhere in Thirsk. I would have floated away into an obscure retirement, probably every bit as happy as the one I am enjoying now!’

  These were not empty words. My father, never one to regard money as a means to an end, rarely exhibited the lifestyle of a rich man. His high earnings, however, did allow him some luxuries that he had previously been unable to afford. In April 1977, he bought Mirebeck, a bungalow situated under the Hambleton Hills that was to be his home until his final days. He was able to buy rather more expensive cars, he and Joan went on holiday abroad, and he did not need to think twice about taking his friends out for dinner; apart from these comparatively modest indulgences, his way of life remained largely unchanged.

  It would be an exaggeration, however, to say that he was disinterested in his new financial status. He gained great satisfaction out of helping others and, especially in the final few years of his life, gave away large sums of money to various charities and to several of his friends. Rosie and I, especially, had great cause to be grateful for his generosity in assisting us with such vital outgoings as buying houses and the funding of our children’s education. A more helpful and thoughtful father would be hard to imagine.

  As well as satisfaction, he derived considerable amusement out of his improved financial position, not least upon observing the deference that was accorded him in some circles. Whenever he walked into his bank, the attitude of the manager and staff towards him was in sharp contrast to the reception he used to receive in his younger days. On one occasion back in 1950, after Joan had lost her engagement ring, he bought her a replacement which did little to lessen his overdraft at the bank. Mr Smallwood, the manager of the Midland Bank in Thirsk – and someone who regarded Alf Wight, with his never diminishing overdraft, as something of a liability – was not amused. He summoned Alf to his office.

  ‘This just will not do, Mr Wight!’ he said. ‘It will not do! A man in your position cannot squander money on luxuries. I don’t want you ever to repeat such a reckless action without consulting me beforehand.’

  After his literary success, Alf had many a smile while recalling this incident. Gone were those days of slinking into the dreaded inner sanctum of the bank manager’s office to cower beneath the stern reprimands from the man in charge of his life.

  Although he tried hard, throughout his celebrity years, to maintain his comparatively modest way of life, it was not possible to stay out of the limelight completely. His position as one of the most popular authors in the country required his playing a full part in supporting the momentum of the James Herriot industry. However, this was something that, especially in the early years of his fame, he often enjoyed.

  Dick Douglas-Boyd, the sales director at Michael Joseph, was someone whom Alf and Joan got to know well over the years. Whenever a new book was published, there were inevitable requests from booksellers for signing sessions and Dick would usually attend these to ensure everything went smoothly. In fact, he and Anthea Joseph used to vie for the pleasure of travelling from London to be with Alf, Anthea usually winning the literary lunches or dinners. With everyone so interested in his rise to fame, Alf found himself thrust into the world of after-dinner speaking; it was something he never really enjoyed but, with such an interesting story to tell – and an equally interesting professio
n about which to talk – he was soon in great demand.

  One function he really enjoyed was the annual ‘Authors of the Year’ reception, run by Hatchards, the famous booksellers in London’s Piccadilly. At these parties, he met the crème de la crème of that year’s authors – like him, the ones who had made the tills rattle the most. He often recalled the first one he attended, at New Zealand House in London. Alf could hardly believe the upturn in his fortunes. As he and Joan stood on the Martini Terrace, the top floor of New Zealand House which looks out over Trafalgar Square, Westminster and the lights of the City, they sipped champagne while rubbing shoulders with such celebrities as H. E. Bates, Jilly Cooper, Antonia Fraser and Spike Milligan. Alf and Joan attended many Hatchards’ parties over the years, and on one occasion were introduced to the Queen and Prince Philip. They always enjoyed meeting the other authors and some very famous personalities, the majority of whom used to greet them like old friends. They also learned that the public images these people sometimes portrayed could be a misleading reflection of their real selves.

  One politician whom they regarded with less than a friendly eye was the Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. The fact that his government was plundering Alf’s income through punitive taxation did not improve his opinion of him. ‘He may be a clever man,’ he said, ‘but I don’t trust him an inch! I wouldn’t buy a second-hand car from Harold!’ Edward Heath, the leader of the Conservative Party, was, in Alf’s opinion, a far more genuine and upstanding man than the Labour leader. How he wished that Heath, not Wilson, was in charge of his country.

  Then, at one of the ‘Authors of the Year’ receptions in the mid-1970s, he met none other than Harold Wilson himself, and I shall never forget my father’s later remarks.

  ‘I met Harold Wilson! What a grand little man!’

  ‘I thought he wasn’t one of your favourite people,’ I replied in amazement.

  ‘He comes from a similar background to myself,’ my father continued enthusiastically, ‘and he is a dog lover and a football supporter! We had a rare old chat together. Do you know, he is just the sort of man I like! I could have spent all night talking to him.’

  Alf’s income from the practice during the first years of the seventies was still welcome. He did not become a really wealthy man until 1976, and it was not until the following decade that he could consider himself a millionaire.

  His accountancy files for that period make interesting reading. In 1972, he earned less than £2,000 from his book sales. This rose to £3,578 in 1973; then there was a big jump to £37,252 in 1974. It is true that he earned additional sums from, for example, newspaper serialisation rights, but his earnings in those opening years of the 1970s, for a man needing to establish a secure future for himself, were not enough to enable him to work part-time.

  One of the reasons he was not quite as affluent as others imagined him to be, was that he was not receiving the full income from his phenomenal sales in America. On the advice of his accountants, he spread his earnings over a number of years rather than taking it as it was earned, so mitigating the tax burdens that were beginning to assume ever-increasing importance. Through not receiving the income from the sales of his books at the time, much of the money that was generated was, instead, diverted into other accounts, some of which, months or years later, would prove difficult to unlock when he actually wanted the money.

  This was not the fault of St Martin’s Press but it did cause Alf considerable worry. His agents, David Higham Associates, were in constant touch with St Martin’s, attempting to clarify the situation, but there was a considerable delay before the money that was rightfully his was lodged in his bank account. The continuing viability of the American publishing house was something that, understandably, gave him cause for concern; should it become bankrupt, there was every chance that his huge earnings in the United States would disappear without trace. Happily, the fortunes of St Martin’s Press improved, and as the 1970s progressed, his money eventually found its way across the Atlantic.

  In 1976, his income from book sales soared to £165,000 but he had another problem to contend with by then. A Labour Government had been elected and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, was famously said to declare his intent to ‘Squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked’. James Herriot’s pips made plenty of noise around that time. Alf had to pay a top rate of tax of 83%, together with the hardly credible figure of 98% on investment income.

  The tax bills that my father received make horrendous viewing. He said to me many years later, after having paid millions into the coffers of Her Majesty’s Treasury, ‘There are two words in the English language that are music to my ears – Tax Free!’ No wonder.

  He and his accountant fought long battles with the local tax inspectors – surely some of the most unpopular people in the land. His every little move to avoid tax legally was stubbornly contested by the men from the Inland Revenue. He was not surprised to learn that his opinion of them was shared by many of his customers.

  While visiting one of his clients, John Atkinson, Alf noticed that the farmer appeared to be a little preoccupied, and remarked that he did not seem his usual self.

  The farmer replied, ‘One o’ them tax fellers is comin ’ere ter talk ter me.’

  ‘That could be awkward, John,’ Alf said, with some feeling.

  ‘Aye, it’s a bad job! Ah doubt ah’ll ’ave ter snarl ’im down a bit!’

  The tax man certainly ‘snarled’ Alf Wight down throughout his years of success, but he refused to resort to complicated ways of avoiding tax. He and Joan did, however, visit the tax haven of Jersey in 1974. Had he remained there, whilst benefiting from the island’s favourable tax laws in operation at that time, he could have realised a considerable sum which he could have legally brought home.

  ‘Are you going to live there for a year?’ I asked him on his return.

  ‘No, Jim, I’m not,’ he said.

  ‘Surely it’s worth shacking up there for a while? There is a lot of money at stake.’

  ‘If I earn £100,000 and I pay tax, I am still left with nearly £20,000,’ he replied. ‘That is still one hell of a lot of money, and quite enough for us. No, I’ll stay here and pay up! I am now nearly sixty years old,’ he continued. ‘The remaining years I have left are very important to me. I love living in Yorkshire among my friends and family – and Jersey is a long way from my football team! Tell me this, how do you put a price upon one whole year of your life?’

  Two years later, his accountant, Bob Rickaby, exhorted him to consider other legal ways of avoiding the astronomical tax bills. Bob was involved in mountainous heaps of correspondence with accountants in London who specialised in the tax affairs of high earners. Their advice was tempered by the fact that my father doggedly refused to live abroad. Other best-selling authors such as Leslie Thomas, Richard Adams and Frederick Forsyth were all residing overseas to limit the effect of the taxman’s teeth, but Alf Wight insisted on staying where he was.

  Many other ingenious schemes were put forward by the London accountants – varying from buying large tracts of forestry to owning racehorses. One way of limiting the tax burden was by setting up trusts that would benefit his relatives several generations down the family tree. This was an efficient means of tax avoidance but it meant that his immediate family would hardly benefit from his earnings.

  ‘Why should I give my money to someone I am never going to know?’ was his response. ‘I can just picture some young person, years from now, fingering my money and celebrating the memory of an unknown great, great grandpappy Wight! No, I would rather pay more tax and give a little of what is left to the family that I know.’ Not surprisingly, I agreed with him.

  One way that he did achieve a little tax relief was by putting my mother and me onto the payroll. My mother helped with his increasing piles of correspondence while I read his manuscripts as well as providing him with several incidents for his stories. The tax man fought this tooth and nail – and we were only allowe
d a very small sum – but at least it was a minor victory in his continuing war against the punitive taxation laws.

  In desperation, one of the accountants said to him, ‘Look, there are only two really best-selling authors still living in this country – you and Jack Higgins. Why not telephone him and find out how he tackles this problem?’

  Jack Higgins had achieved phenomenal success with his novel The Eagle Has Landed, and Alf seemed to remember that he was living somewhere in South Yorkshire. He eventually managed to discover his address only to receive a brief, taped message on the telephone to the effect that Mr Higgins was now in residence on the island of Jersey! He, too, had failed to defeat the Inland Revenue.

  Alf’s determination never to live overseas, with the resulting payment of colossal sums to Her Majesty’s Chancellor, meant that it would be many years before he could call himself a seriously wealthy man.

  He said to his accountant, Bob Rickaby, one day, ‘I get masses of letters asking me to donate money to good causes and fund scholarships for veterinary schools. They must all think I’m a millionaire.’

  ‘You could have been,’ replied Bob, ‘but by living in this country you have written five books for the tax man and one for yourself!’

  To his credit, Alf did not let his failure to amass huge sums of money worry him. His agent, Jacqueline Korn, said to me recently that, of all the best-selling authors whose literary affairs she has looked after, he was the one whose fame altered his lifestyle the least.

  Although Alf had been pitched into the world of the celebrity, the vast majority of his time was still spent as a veterinary surgeon in Thirsk. The practice of Sinclair and Wight, in the early 1970s, was busy, and still only a four-man operation. It would have been impossible to run the business with any fewer, and Alf worked full time for the following ten years, right up until 1980 when more assistance was acquired. By then, he was almost sixty-five years old, and was entitled to take his foot off the pedal a little.