THE REAL JAMES HERRIOT

The real James Herriot The author and vet behind the All Creatures Great and Small books tended to animals in the Yorkshire Dales by day and wrote books based on his experiences by night. But how much truth was there in his much-loved tales?

WORDS FELICITY DAY

It all began in the early summer of 1940 with an advertisement: a vet wanted for a practice in Thirsk. ‘Mainly agricultural work in a Yorkshire market town’ the notice said. With vacancies few and far between, it grabbed the attention of one reader, by no means averse to working with creatures rather greater in size than the cats and dogs currently occupying his time in the northern city of Sunderland. After only the very briefest of interviews with his new employer, James ‘Alf’ Wight accepted the post, little knowing that it was a decision that would one day make him the most famous vet in the world.

For it was the stories Wight saved up over the next 30 years, as he served the farming community around that bustling town on the edge of the North York Moors, that he channelled into a bestselling series of memoirs, published in the 1970s under the name of his veterinary alter-ego, James Herriot.

The gently humorous, semi-fictionalised recollections of his rural practice proved to be catnip to contemporary readers (including, reportedly, the Queen) and turned Herriot into a household name – one discovered by a whole new generation more recently, too, thanks to the smash-hit TV adaptation, All Creatures Great and Small, expected to return for its third series this autumn.

But while Herriot’s may be the famous name, forever associated with a green and sheep-strewn corner of Yorkshire, Wight’s books were actually autobiographical in more than just a professional sense. Many of the intensely likeable characters and amusing anecdotes, which mean they translate so purr-fectly into the TV version of a restorative tonic, were people and events from

his real life, disguised (and sometimes embellished) for their appearance in print. Just as Alf himself became Herriot, the town of Thirsk was turned into Darrowby village and shifted into the heart of the Dales; its glorious rolling hills and endless dry stone walls providing an idyllic backdrop to the action. Dates, too, were manipulated so that Wight’s fictional counterpart – trained in The gently humorous recollections Glasgow like himself – arrived at his mildly of his rural practice proved to be eccentric but undeniably catnip to contemporary readers charming boss Siegfried Farnon’s surgery at Skeldale (including, reportedly, the Queen) House in 1937, two years before the outbreak of the World War Two. In reality, Wight escaped the Nazi bombs then raining down on the Sunderland docks, and arrived at 23 Kirkgate just as the real-life Donald Sinclair was taking off to start his RAF training, leaving his new employee – inexperienced in the ‘dirty, uncomfortable and dangerous’ work with sheep and cattle – to take the bull by the horns, quite literally. Impatient and unpredictable, yet utterly charismatic, the widowed Donald was by all accounts the one character far more unconventional in fact than he ever was in fiction. From putting the phone down on the

Previous page: The Yorkshire Moors National Park, where Alf Wight lived and worked This page, above: A photograph of Jim and Alf Wight treating a dog; Alf Wight on his farm with a newborn lamb and its mother Opposite page, top to bottom: a still from the TV adaption of All Creatures Great and Small; the town of Grassington in Wharfedale stood in for Darrowby in the TV series

practice’s clients when he got fed up of listening, to steering his car using only his elbows and shirking night-time call outs, some of his behaviour was outlandishly erratic.

On one occasion in later years, according to Wight’s son Jim, he fetched his shotgun and fired into the wall inches above the head of a dinner guest whom he considered to have outstayed his welcome.

Nevertheless, after he was kicked out of the RAF a matter of months into his training for lying about his age, he and Wight became lifelong friends and partners in the Thirsk practice. Into the writer’s life he brought his younger brother Brian, who eventually became the model for endearing rogue, Tristan Farnon. In truth, as on TV, the younger Sinclair was an easy-going mischief-maker who remained largely immune to his sibling’s tirades – especially those about his repeated failure of his veterinary exams, which took him more than ten years to pass in all.

Their days as a bachelor trio at the real-life Skeldale

House were actually relatively short, because within just a year of arriving in Yorkshire, Wight had not only met but also married his wife, Joan. A secretary for a local corn merchant rather than a farmer’s daughter like her fictional counterpart Helen, she did, however, have a serious suitor against whom the softly-spoken vet competed – though not one she ever scandalously jilted at the altar. After their wedding, Wight Like her fictional counterpart, made his own attempt to Joan had a suitor against whom complete the RAF’s flight training, frustrated in his case the vet competed – though not by a pre-existing medical condition, which meant that one she ever jilted at the altar he, too, never saw active service. Instead, he and Joan settled into the local community; 23 Kirkgate becoming both veterinary surgery and Wight family home for several years after the end of the war, in the wake of Donald’s remarriage to an unflappable local woman named Audrey. It was in that picturesque part of Yorkshire that they met the many personalities – of both human and animal variety – who would later be shepherded into the Herriot stories.

For more on the landscapes and villages of Yorkshire, see www.britainmagazine.com

Some clients received only the barest of disguises: the unforgettable Mrs Pumphrey, whose dog Tricki Woo is a TV scene-stealer, was unquestionably Sowerby resident Marjorie Warner, who really did expect thank-you notes for the Fortnum & Mason hampers she dispatched to the Wight family to be written to her Pekingese dog – who ought, she made absolutely clear, to be addressed as Bambi Warner, Esq. She bore no grudge when she discovered her starring role, recognising herself immediately – though not everybody given a fictional counterpart did so, even after Wight’s cover was well and truly blown.

The locals took his worldwide fame in their stride, keeping his welly boots firmly on the ground – just the way Alf himself wanted it. In fact, he continued practising as one of their local vets well into his 70s, despite his phenomenal literary success. He was, he always maintained, ‘99-per-cent vet and one-per-cent author’ – though at times, the cats, dogs and hamsters to be found in the surgery’s waiting room were far outnumbered by hordes of overseas tourists, clutching their cameras and clamouring for an autograph; fame being the one beast that not even the real James Herriot had the power to tame.

Above, left to right: The principal cast of the TV series, which will return for a third series this autumn; the church at Burnsall in North Yorkshire was used to film the famous scene where Helen almost got married in the TV series

ON THE HERRIOT TRAIL

Alf Wight’s former surgery at 23 Kirkgate in Thirsk is now a museum, fully restored to the way it looked in the 1940s when the house doubled as his family home. For opening times and visitor information, see www.worldofjamesherriot.com.

The current TV adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small, shown on Channel 5 in the UK and PBS Masterpiece in the US, was filmed around the Yorkshire Dales. The historic town of Grassington in Wharfedale (around 30 miles from the real Herriot country around Thirsk) stood in for Darrowby, and provided period-perfect exteriors for Skeldale House and the Drover’s Arms pub. Many of the scenic shots came courtesy of the Wharfe Valley area, particularly around Malham and Kettlewell.

Tour companies offering dedicated All Creatures Great and Small tours include Real Yorkshire Tours (www.realyorkshiretours.co.uk) and Tours International (www.tours-international.com).