He had an excellent grounding in that he was extremely well-read, and was a dedicated and accomplished letter-writer. He had observed tremendous change taking place within his profession and he felt a burning desire to put it all down in print. He wanted to talk about the quirky characters he had met, with their fascinating, old-fashioned customs and remedies. He felt compelled to describe the old Yorkshire he had grown to love – a way of life that was fast disappearing – and he wanted to preserve it for others to enjoy. A humorous slant could be provided by his friends, Donald and Brian Sinclair, with whom he had had so many hilarious times.
It was following the recovery from his nervous breakdown that, with such fertile ideas, he began to write in earnest, but he soon discovered that it was not going to be as easy as he thought. After about eighteen months of chopping and changing his story, he came to the conclusion that he was going nowhere. His book, a succession of long sentences full of florid adjectives was, in his own words, like a ‘schoolboy’s essay and a poor one at that’. He had to think again.
The pages of Alf’s very first attempt are covered in corrections and alterations; he must have spent countless hours re-writing the book. The end result was a somewhat jerky collection of stories about farmers and his veterinary friends, Donald and Brian, whom he called Edward and Henry Vernon. Some of the episodes are ones that were eventually to appear in his first published book, but they are a pale shadow of the work that was to appear years later.
It was while he was sadly taking stock of all his efforts that an idea came to him. His book was, in essence, just a collection of short stories, tenuously connected together. He had always been a great admirer of the art of short-story telling, with the stories of Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells and O’Henry remaining some of his all-time favourites. He decided temporarily to shelve the idea of a long book and try his hand at short-story writing. While on his rounds, as he listened attentively to stories on the car radio, he thought to himself, ‘Surely I can do as well as that?’ With renewed feelings of confidence and excitement, he began.
For around a year or so, he wrote stories about football, golf, various outdoor activities and human relationships in general. Having re-read them many times over, he thought that they were really quite good and that his style was improving. He was quite impressed with his efforts. With feelings of delicate optimism, he soon began to wonder what others might think of them. He decided to take the plunge and sent some of the stories to selected magazines and periodicals, as well as to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Perhaps he might get the odd one published.
*
It is widely believed that James Herriot wrote innumerable stories that never reached publication. In fact, there were not many. He was working hard in the practice, managing to write only in short bursts in his free time, and the result of his labours was no more than seven or eight stories. After his death, I found one in his study entitled The Saint’s Day, a story that I had never seen before. This story, about the discomfort suffered by a middle-aged man while on a sponsored walk with his young daughter, took me a long time to read; I had to keep stopping to wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes.
I read the stories at the time with great enjoyment, but it seemed that not everyone agreed with my opinion. His efforts at getting his work published drew a blank. His stories came back to him by return of post and he became, as he said later, ‘a connoisseur of the sickening thud that a manuscript makes as it falls through the letterbox’. Not only did no one seem to want his work, but he was even further disheartened by the total absence of any comments or words of encouragement. The stories of James Alfred Wight had completely failed to interest anyone; as a potential author, he was a nobody.
Alf said very little to anyone about his hobby. As he did not really expect to attain the heady heights of published authorship, he kept his rejections very much to himself. He was discouraged but by no means beaten. He enjoyed writing and he did not take it too seriously, tapping out his stories in his own time with no one to pressurise him – but, deep within him, feelings of intense frustration were growing. He genuinely believed that the stories he submitted were as good as many he had read or listened to on the radio. Realising that he must be doing something wrong, he returned to studying the art of writing.
One day, he returned for lunch to regale my mother with yet another funny incident that had happened to him on his rounds. ‘It would be a good story for the book!’ he said.
She looked at him and said, ‘ Thebook, Alf? You have been talking about writing a book for the past twenty years. You’ll never write a book!’
‘Why on earth not?’ he replied.
‘It will soon be our silver wedding anniversary,’ she countered, ‘and you still have not written it. Men of almost fifty don’t start writing books!’
He explained away the twenty-odd barren years by suggesting that he was not the impulsive type and needed time to assemble his masterpiece. His wife was unimpressed.
Her remarks, however, had stung him and, on that very same day, he had a revelation. He realised he should return to writing about something on which he was well-informed, not just topics that interested him. He was an expert on only one subject – veterinary practice. He had been on the right track at the start. He would unearth his old book and begin again.
The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. He had fresh ideas and bought more books on the art of writing, studying them all closely. He had many hilarious episodes firmly fixed in his mind and he felt sure that, this time, with a year or two of ‘practising’ behind him, he could make a good job of it. He sensed a new surge of enthusiasm.
He began writing this book around the autumn of 1965, taking about eighteen months to complete it. It was a slow process as he was working full time in the practice, including some periods of night work. Abandoning the use of impressive and complicated words, he completely rewrote several chapters of his original book, changing the story many times over until, by the early months of 1967, he felt that he could improve upon it no more. His simpler, conversational style was, he felt, far more readable than his previous one.
He had finished. He felt that this was not only a great improvement on his original effort but was a book that could be enjoyed by people of all ages. With a warm glow of satisfaction, he realised that he had completed one of his life’s ambitions.
For a few weeks, he relaxed and enjoyed the feeling of achievement. He had produced a book that his family would remember him by, a nice little story for his grandchildren to read, and for a while he put it to the back of his mind. The practice was busy at the time – experiencing the rush of early spring lambing – and he had plenty of work to occupy him, but it was not long before he began to feel restless. There was still a nagging question that remained unanswered: ‘Was his book good enough to interest a publisher?’ He just had to know.
He was not very optimistic. With the rejections of his earlier work having been such a disappointment, he had little reason to expect better luck with this one. He thought long and hard about the next step.
Joan had a suggestion. Having thoroughly enjoyed the ‘Doctor’ series of books by Richard Gordon – amongst them Doctor in the Houseand Doctor at Large –which recounted hilarious incidents about the medical profession, she reasoned that her husband’s book was in a similar vein. Why not therefore send his manuscript to the publishers of those books? Alf was in full agreement and, having ascertained that they were published by Michael Joseph Ltd, prepared to post off the manuscript to the London publishing house.