The amount of TB Testing – although still a major contributor to the practice income – began to slowly diminish as the number of stock farmers in the surrounding area declined. In the early 1970s, a new government scheme to eradicate Brucellosis would begin, meaning more revenue for country practices, but not only was that still a long way off, the big upturn in small animal work was yet to materialise.
To add to his worries, a veterinary surgeon had established a practice in the nearby village of Maunby. This was a difficult time for Alf and Donald as they saw some of their clients desert them, taking their business to the new vet. It was, also, a very revealing experience. Some of the clients who left were men whom Alf had considered to be personal friends; conversely, others whom he did not know so intimately remained loyal to Sinclair and Wight. Alf was a very thoughtful man at that time, and he would never forget those clients who remained faithful to the practice. The opposition did not last very long, departing in 1968, but some clients were lost to the practice for ever.
It is interesting to compare the practice accounts during the years of the 1960s. At the end of the decade, Alf earned £4,685, over £1,000 less than he had earned in 1960. Although inflation was not high during that decade, it was still very easy to forget that the value of money gradually diminished with the advancing years and that other gently rising expenses chipped away persistently at the practice profits. This was a time when Alf and Donald realised that their charges – whilst still regarded by some of the farmers as being too steep – had not risen in line with their expenses.
Although Alf was never adept at dealing with figures, he was always a sensible person, and this stood him in good stead during his years of financial uncertainty. Despite the many factors limiting his practice profits, he still managed to earn well; in 1966 – the year that he could not afford to celebrate his silver wedding – he managed to earn the respectable sum of almost £5,000. Why, then, did he have no capital?
There is a simple answer. He earned well but, rather than save it, he spent it. Alf was always a generous man who thought little of spending money on others; this, combined with the high cost of living that everyone experiences, was a major obstacle to amassing capital.
His own family benefited from his generous nature. My sister and I had the happiest childhoods imaginable. We were well fed, we had several holidays each year and, in our schooldays, rarely missed out on trips. If my father was ever short of money, we were never aware of it.
It was not only his children who benefited from his generosity. He strove continually to make Joan’s life less demanding. Even though Rowardennan was a modern house and easier to keep clean than the big old Kirkgate house, he still paid women to help her. In 1956, he bought her a Morris Minor, the first of a succession of new cars.
After 1961, he had to fund my university education and, four years later, Rosie’s as well, but one of the most revealing examples of his generosity was the financial support he provided for his parents. From the first days of working with Jock McDowall in Sunderland, when he was earning £3 a week, he sent money to them and, even during his time in the RAF, when he was receiving a paltry three shillings a day, money was on its way up to Glasgow.
There are references to this in his letters to them. In one from Sunderland in 1940, he wrote: ‘Here’s 30 bob from my pay; buy yourself 10 Woodbines, Pop old boy!’ And from Thirsk in 1941: ‘Funny how hard it is to save! I don’t spend much and I’ve only given you folks £40 since I came. I do wish it could have been more.’ In later years, as he regularly sent money to them, he referred to it as ‘the pension’. It must have amounted to a fair sum over all that time; he rarely missed a week.
In 1958, he bought his parents’ house in Glasgow. As rent-paying tenants, they were faced with the possibility that the owner was going to sell the house which would have meant their having to find a new home. It cost Alf £1000, a substantial sum at that time. The debt he felt he owed his parents was repaid many times over.
Alf Wight received nothing in the way of financial aid throughout his life and this, combined with his generous and responsible nature, goes a long way to explaining his lack of any capital at that time. His position was hardly surprising, and indeed was no worse than that of many of his professional colleagues of the day, with his lack of readily available money balanced by freedom from any form of debt, save for the mortgage on his house. Admittedly, he was a worried man when he learned that he had no more than £20 to his name in 1966, but he did not allow this to spoil a life that was both rewarding and brimming with a wide variety of interests.
One day, in the early 1960s, while on a visit home during my years at Glasgow Veterinary School, I came across a small manuscript in one of the drawers at Rowardennan. It was a short story called Left Wingerand it was about football. I sat down then and there to read it. Having noticed my father’s familiar scrawl superimposed over parts of the typewritten text, I then approached him with it.
This is very good,’ I said. ‘Did you write it?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, almost apologetically. ‘You really think it’s good, do you?’
‘I really do! Why don’t you send it to a publisher or a magazine?’
‘I have,’ he said. ‘Several’
‘And?’
‘No one seems to want it.’ He thought for a moment before continuing. ‘But you think it’s good?’ He seemed singularly interested in my opinion.
‘Yes, I do!’
He seemed satisfied and dropped the subject.
I knew that my father had been writing for a year or two, and presumed that he was continuing to pursue yet another of his ‘crazes’. This latest hobby seemed to be one at which he appeared to be not only adept but one also that he was clearly taking a little more seriously than the others. I continued to believe, however, that – as with many of his other interests, – he would persevere with this new enthusiasm for a while longer before giving it up for something else. I was wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘May I borrow one of your magazines, Joan?’ Alf asked of his secretary one day, a slightly sheepish expression upon his face. Joan Drake, who had joined the practice straight from school in 1959, four years previously, considered that she knew her employer quite well. She had regarded him as a man who was at home drinking beer in the company of his friends, or standing on the packed terraces of football grounds, but definitely not the type to read women’s magazines. It was a strange request and she looked at him a little more closely.
I’ll give it back to you as soon as I have read it!’ he promised. Detecting the look of puzzlement on her face, he lowered his voice before continuing. ‘I want to have a look at the short stories.’
Unknown to many, including Joan Drake, Alf’s pastime of writing – for which he was obtaining information and ideas from every possible source – had, in fact, been occupying an increasing amount of his time for several years. Around the late 1950s, he had bought books on the art of writing and, in his spare time, had tentatively begun to tap away on his typewriter.
The idea of writing a book had been one of Alf’s long-held dreams. I remember his talking about it during my schooldays and a letter written by Joan to his parents dated 2 October 1955 is very revealing: ‘I must tell you that there is great excitement in the house as it’s Alf’s birthday tomorrow. Guess what I have bought for him – a typewriter! I’m sure he will be writing to you much more often now; he may even get down to writing that book he has been talking about for thirteen years!’
Although Joan had been listening to Alf’s ideas for writing a book almost from the day they first met, it took him more than twenty years to think seriously of turning his dream into reality.