James Herriot

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Herriot’s former surgery in Thirsk is now a tourist attraction.

James Herriot is the pen name of James Alfred Wight, OBE, also known as Alf Wight (3 October 1916 – 23 February 1995), a British veterinary surgeon and writer. Wight is best known for his semi-autobiographical stories, often referred to collectively as All Creatures Great and Small, a title used in some editions and in film and television attractions.

Biography

James Alfred Wight was born on 3 October 1916, in Sunderland, County Durham, England to James (1890–1960) and Hannah (1890–1980) Wight. Shortly after their wedding, the Wights moved from Brandling Street, Sunderland^[1] to Glasgow in Scotland, where James took work as both a ship plater and pianist for a local cinema, while Hannah was a singer as well as a dressmaker.^[1] For Alf's birth, his mother returned to Sunderland, bringing him back to Glasgow when he was three weeks old. He attended Yoker Primary School and Hillhead High School.

In 1939, at the age of 23, he qualified as a veterinary surgeon from Glasgow Veterinary College. In January, 1940, he took a brief job at a veterinary practice in Sunderland, but moved in July to work in a rural practice based in the town of Thirsk, Yorkshire, close to the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. On 5 November 1941, he married Joan Catherine Anderson Danbury. The couple had two children, James Alexander (Jim), born 1943, who also became a vet and was a partner in the practice, and Rosemary (Rosie), born 1947, who became a medical doctor.

Wight served in the Royal Air Force in 1942. His wife moved to her parents' house during this time, and upon being discharged from the RAF as a Leading Aircraftman, Wight joined her. They lived here until 1946, at which point they moved back to 23 Kirkgate, staying until 1953. Later, he moved with his wife to a house on Topcliffe Road, Thirsk, opposite the secondary school. The original practice is now a museum, "The World of James Herriot", while the Topcliffe Road house is now in private ownership and not open to the public. He later moved with his family to the village of Thirlby, about four miles from Thirsk, where he lived until his death.

Wight intended for years to write a book, but with most of his time consumed by veterinary practice and family, his writing ambition went nowhere. Challenged by his wife, in 1966 (at the age of 50), he began writing. After several rejected stories on other subjects like football, he turned to what he knew best. In 1969 Wight wrote If Only They Could Talk, the first of the now-famous series based on his life working as a vet and his training in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. Owing in part to English law forbidding veterinary surgeons from advertising, he took a pen name, choosing "James Herriot" after seeing the Scottish goalkeeper Jim Herriot play exceptionally well for Birmingham City F.C. in a televised game against Manchester United. If Only They Could Talk was published in the United Kingdom in 1970 by Michael Joseph LTD, but sales were slow until Thomas McCormack, of St. Martin's Press in New York City, received a copy and arranged to have the first two books published as a single volume in the United States. The resulting book, titled All Creatures Great and Small, was an overnight success, spawning numerous sequels, movies, and a successful television adaptation.

Wight was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1991,^[1] and underwent treatment in the Lambert Memorial Hospital in Thirsk. He died 23 February 1995, aged 78, at home in Thirlby.^[2]

On 29 July 2009, UK-based open access rail operator Grand Central Railway, who operate train services from Wight's birthplace of Sunderland to London King's Cross (calling at Thirsk), named a Class 180 DEMU No. 180112 James Herriot in his honour. The ceremony was carried out jointly by Alf Wight's daughter Rosie, and son, Jim.^[3]

Author

In his books, Wight calls the town where he lives and works Darrowby, which he based largely on the towns of Thirsk^[4] and Sowerby. He also renamed Donald Sinclair and his brother Brian Sinclair as Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, respectively.

Wight's books are only partially autobiographical, and the stories and characters should not be assumed to have happened or existed exactly as related. Many of the stories are only loosely based on real events or people, and thus can be considered primarily fiction. Even when writing accurately of real events and people, Wight frequently employed authorial licence to present them in a manner that bore little relation to the genuine chronology of his life. In his biography of his father, for instance, Wight's son Jim states that many of the stories related in the books, although written as if they took place in the 1930s or 1940s, are actually based on events that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s.^{[citation needed]}

From a historical standpoint, the stories help document a transitional period in the veterinary industry: agriculture was moving from the traditional use of beasts of burden (in England, primarily the draught horse) to reliance upon the mechanical tractor, and medical science was just on the cusp of discovering the antibiotics and other treatments that eliminated many of the ancient remedies still in use. These and other sociological factors prompted a largescale shift in veterinary practice over the course of the 20th century: at the start of the century, virtually all of a vet's time was spent working with farm animals; by the turn of the millennium, the majority of vets practise mostly or exclusively on small animals (dogs, cats, and other pets). In the stories, Wight (as Herriot) occasionally steps out of the narrative at hand, to comment with the benefit of hindsight on the primitive state of vet medicine at the time. Among the episodes included in the books are memories of his first hysterectomy on a cat, and his first (almost disastrous) Caesarean section on a cow.

The Herriot books are often described as "animal stories" (Wight himself was known to refer to them as his "little cat-and-dog stories"^[5]), and given that they are about the life of a country veterinarian, animals certainly play a significant role in most of the stories. However, there are a few of the stories in which animals play little or no part (particularly those about his courtship of Helen), and the overall theme of the stories is actually Yorkshire country life as a whole, with the people and animals being two of the primary elements that give it its distinct character.

The books were adapted into two films and a long-running BBC television programme, all called All Creatures Great and Small.

At the time of his death, the Reader's Digest Condensed Book volume containing All Creatures Great And Small (Volume 96, 1973 #5) was the most popular book in that series' history.^[5] His last book, Every Living Thing, immediately went into the top 10 bestseller list in Britain, and had an 865,000 copy first edition printing in the United States.^[5]

Herriot's fame has generated a thriving tourist economy in Thirsk. Local businesses include the "World of James Herriot" museum (located in 23 Kirkgate, the original practice surgery), and a pub called the "Darrowby Fayre".

Bibliography

Books

• If Only They Could Talk (1970) ISBN 0330237837
• It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet (1972) ISBN 0330237829
• All Creatures Great and Small (1972)
• Let Sleeping Vets Lie (1974) ISBN 0330241567
• Vet in Harness (1974) ISBN 0330246631
• All Things Bright and Beautiful (1974)
• Vets Might Fly (1976) ISBN 0330252216
• Vet in a Spin (1977) ISBN 0330255320
• All Things Wise and Wonderful (1977)
• James Herriot's Yorkshire (1979)
• The Lord God Made Them All (1981)
• Every Living Thing (1992)
• James Herriot's Cat Stories (1994)
• James Herriot's Favourite Dog Stories (1995)

Omnibus editions

In the United States, Herriot's novels were considered too short to publish independently, and so several pairs of novels were collected into omnibus volumes. The title All Creatures Great and Small was taken from the second line of the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful, and inspired by a punning suggestion from Herriot's daughter, who thought the book should be called Ill Creatures Great and Small.

• All Creatures Great and Small (1972) (incorporating If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet)
• All Things Bright and Beautiful (1974) (incorporating Let Sleeping Vets Lie and Vet in Harness)
• All Things Wise and Wonderful (1977) (incorporating Vets Might Fly and Vet in a Spin)

Biographies

• Lord, Graham. James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet (1997)
• Wight, Jim. The Real James Herriot: The Authorized Biography (1999)

See also

• All Creatures Great and Small (film)
• All Creatures Great and Small (TV series)
• Donald Sinclair (veterinary surgeon)
• Brian Sinclair

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: James Herriot

• Official James Herriot Website (worldofjamesherriot.org)
• James Alfred Wight OBE (thirsk.org.uk)
• Information on days out in Herriot Country and where to stay
• Signature of James Herriot - Yorkshire