James Alfred Wight and Joan Catherine Anderson Danbury were married at 8 o’clock on the morning of 5 November 1941 in the church of St Mary Magdalene in Thirsk. It was a bitterly cold day, and the sum total of five people attended. The best man was none other than his senior partner, Donald Sinclair, while Joan was given away by her employer, Fred Rymer, from the mill in Thirsk. The elderly Canon Young, who conducted the marriage ceremony, shivered with cold throughout and could hardly get through the proceedings fast enough.
At my parents’ Golden Wedding celebrations held at the Black Bull Inn near Richmond in 1991, my father reminisced, during an amusing speech, about his quiet little wedding all those years ago. His abiding memory was of Donald standing next to him, his teeth chattering with cold, and mumbling a long succession of ‘Amens’ at regular intervals, while Canon Young droned on in the icy church. At one vital point, the Canon asked Alf, ‘Will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded husband?!’ He corrected himself upon receiving a blank stare. Alf would never forget his feelings on that happy day as he walked out of the church with his new bride. He wrote later, ‘I’ll always remember that sight – the cold frosty morning, the empty street facing us and the slanting beams of sunlight.’
It was an amusing experience for Joan and Alf to watch, many years later, the wedding of James Herriot and his bride in the television series ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. The occasion portrayed was a substantial one, with the bride wearing white and many notable people in attendance. The reality was so different; although not uncommon during the war years, few people will have had a more modest wedding ceremony.
Somewhat surprisingly, Joan’s parents, both of whom thoroughly approved of Alf as a future son-in-law, did not attend the wedding of their only daughter, despite living only a mile or so away from the church. However, they had their reasons. Apart from Joan’s father, Horace, being very ill at the time, they were aware of the problems between Alf and his parents and, knowing that Alf and Joan wanted a very quiet wedding, they decided to stay at home. With Alf’s parents having stated their reluctance to attend the wedding, together with difficulties presented in travelling around Britain in wartime, the result was a complete absence of both sets of parents on that unpretentious, but nevertheless, important day.
Alf and Joan had every justification for such a small and secretive occasion. A larger wedding, to which they would have felt compelled to invite many people, was, quite simply, beyond their financial horizons. Joan Danbury was in no better financial state than her husband: the sum total of her wedding dowry was a half-share in a pig which she owned in partnership with a man called Bob Barton. This big strong man, who drove the delivery lorry for Rymer’s Mill, could throw eight-stone sacks around as though they were tennis balls, but there was a soft streak to his nature. When the time came for the pig to be killed, Alf remembered the big man leaning on his shoulder, his eyes full of tears. In the course of many months looking after her, he had become deeply attached to this appealing creature.
‘Mr Wight,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion, ‘that pig – Ah’m tellin’ yer, she were a Christian!’
There was some consolation, however. Not only was the meat from that pig, when roasted, some of the finest Alf had ever tasted, but Joan made some magnificent pork pies from some of the choicest cuts. Alf’s Uncle George Wilkins, who considered himself an expert in the art of pork-pie tasting, came down from Sunderland one day and asserted that he had never eaten anything finer. That wonderful pig had not died in vain; Joan’s dowry may have been a modest one but it provided an unforgettable gastronomic experience.
After the wedding ceremony, Alf and Joan had a champagne breakfast with Donald at 23 Kirkgate before setting off on their honeymoon in the Yorkshire Dales. They stayed in the Wheatsheaf Inn, in the village of Carperby in Wensleydale. This small village inn is so proud of the fact that the future James Herriot spent two nights of his honeymoon there, a plaque on the wall describes it as ‘James Herriot’s honeymoon hotel’. The inn was famed for its good food all those years ago and the young couple, who were both tremendous eaters, made the most of it – wading into kippers, as well as bacon and eggs, for breakfast, with plenty of locally-made Wensleydale cheese and butter always available.
For the first two days of their honeymoon, Alf spent his time T.B. Testing cows in the hill farms of Wensleydale. This seems a rather unusual activity for such an important holiday but, with the practice becoming busier, he had insisted to Donald that he would combine work with pleasure.
In the event, those few days turned out to be very enjoyable. The farmers and their wives, amazed that the young couple were spending a working honeymoon, treated them to real Dales hospitality in the form of delicious farmhouse meals followed by gifts of ham, eggs and cheese – a real bonus in wartime when such delicacies were severely rationed.
One farmer’s wife, Mrs Allen of Gayle, situated at the head of Wensleydale, had repeatedly teased Alf about his marriage prospects. To her astonishment, he said to her just one day before his wedding, ‘I’ve taken your advice, Mrs Allen. I’m going to get married!’
‘Eeeh,’ she replied, ‘Ah’m right pleased! When?’
‘Tomorrow!’
‘Termorrer? But ye’re comin’ ’ere to read’t TB Test in a couple o’ days’ time.’
‘That’s right!’
What a surprise she received when she duly met his brand new bride, dressed in old trousers and scribbling down the numbers of the cows in the book.
The weather was kind and the sight of the Yorkshire Dales in their best autumnal colours enhanced their enjoyment of that unconventional holiday.
On the Saturday morning, Mr and Mrs Alfred Wight left the Wheatsheaf to spend a short time with Alf’s relatives in Sunderland – although the entire staff of the hotel was needed to push Alf’s old car before it could be persuaded to start. Once in Sunderland, they were treated to some wonderful north-east hospitality, with Alf’s happiness tempered only by the deafening silence from his parents in Glasgow. He wrote to them, on the last day of his honeymoon in Sunderland.
My dear Mother and Dad,
This is really the first chance I have had to write since the big event as the first part of our little holiday has consisted of work. I have tried in vain to phone you. But I am worried that you have sent no word – not even a wire on the day. I really am upset about it as I hurried back to Thirsk on Saturday expecting to find some word from you. I only hope nothing is wrong and I’ll be relieved when I hear from you.…
It is lovely here among the Wilkins and I only wish you folks were sitting in the room with us all. One thing I hope is that there will be a letter from you waiting for me at Thirsk.
Despite his happiness at such an important period of his life, Alf worried continually about the parents to whom he felt so attached. He was, however, convinced that he had made the right decision in standing up to his mother, and hoped that the passage of time would ease her strong feelings about his marriage to Joan. One thing was certain; he was not going to allow this to come between himself and his wife.
There were other important matters to be addressed, not least his future as a veterinary surgeon that stretched before him. After only three days in Sunderland, he was back at work in Thirsk, jumping once again on the treadmill that was veterinary practice. His honeymoon had lasted exactly six days, two of them working ones. His holidays away from the practice would be few and far between for the next ten years of his life.