‘Alfred!’ he said. ‘I have had a word with Sheila and I’m going to Leeds to bring Brian home!’
‘Why?’ Alf asked.
Donald was in sombre mood. He thought a great deal of his younger brother, and the past weeks had been an ordeal. ‘He’s getting no better, he’s going to die, and I want him to die at home … with dignity.’
At that time, a consultant had been specially drafted in to help in the diagnosis of Brian’s illness. My father’s response was immediate. He, too, was deeply depressed by Brian’s dreadful condition but he felt that Donald was wrong.
‘He is your brother, Donald, and it is your decision, but I think you are making a mistake.’
Donald paced around the floor, wrestling with his dilemma, but his mind was made up. ‘No, I can’t stand watching him going to nothing. He’s coming home!’
Alf was never one to interfere, but the life of one of his greatest friends was at stake and he had to say more. ‘He’s only got one chance, Donald, and it is in that hospital. This new consultant just might come up with something. If Brian comes home, he will definitely die. Please leave him where he is. It’s his only hope.’
Donald, racked with emotion, said no more and left the room.
Donald Sinclair was a man with strong convictions – and was never one to listen readily to others. There was just one man, however, to whom he would sometimes listen, and that man was Alfred Wight. Having, from their very earliest days together, had a high regard for his partner’s opinions, he once again took his advice. Brian stayed where he was.
No one really unravelled the mystery of Brian’s condition (thought to be an obscure pituitary gland disorder) but shortly after that conversation in the surgery, a broadside of drugs was thrown at him, following which, remarkably, he began to improve. The drugs were gradually withdrawn as he got better but he had to remain on steroids for the rest of his days – a small price to pay for several more happy years.
Another of Alf’s great friends whose health had given cause for concern was Denton Pette. Having suffered a stroke in 1977, from which he never fully recovered, he died in July 1981. Eve and Denton were some of the first to be asked to the many dinners and celebrations following Alf’s success as a writer, Denton’s open and cheerful countenance being a vital contribution to their enjoyment. Both Alf and Joan felt his death keenly.
Shortly before Denton was taken ill, he and Alf watched a fiercely contested football match between Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Being a fanatical supporter of Middlesbrough – and an equally dedicated hater of Alf’s club, Sunderland – we often wondered whether the excitement of that occasion had contributed towards his stroke.
Denton was another of those great characters who crossed Alf’s life and, as Granville Bennett, will be remembered with great affection by many Herriot fans. Alf wrote of his great friend in the Veterinary Record, ‘He was a true friend to a host of people who will remember him with gratitude for the happiness he brought into their lives.’ He did, indeed, bring happiness and laughter into many people’s lives.
In 1981, Alf’s regular visits to Glasgow drew to a close. For over ten years, he had spent either Christmas or New Year with his mother – and he and other members of the family visited her often at other times of the year. In the summer of that year, however, she was moved down to a nursing-home in Harrogate and was there until her peaceful death the following December. As Alf stood at her funeral, his mind swept back to myriad memories of his mother who had sacrificed so much to ensure that her son realised his ambition to become a veterinary surgeon. She had been a force to be reckoned with in her time but she left us all with memories of gratitude and respect.
Her pride in the achievements of her son had led to many embarrassing moments. ‘Now, you know who I am?’ she would say to total strangers. ‘I am James Herriot’s mother! Let me introduce you to him. Alf … Alf …?’ Like his father before him, Alf would have quietly disappeared from the scene.
It is beyond the scope of this book to describe the many hilarious episodes concerning my grandmother, but the old lady who looked after me so well during my university years is remembered by the whole family with great affection.
Alf Wight may have been at the very height of his success in the early 1980s, but the loss of those close to him at that time, together with his own bout of ill-health and Brian’s serious illness, were a constant reminder that time was passing by. As he looked back over the previous ten years of achievement, he had reason to feel proud of what he had done; and as such a careful and compassionate man, he had – apart from the brief upset with Donald over the characterisation of Siegfried – managed to achieve his success without hurting the feelings of others in any way.
From his very beginnings as a writer, Alf’s primary concern was that he should not upset his friends but, in 1981, he was reminded again that the trappings of fame can take on an unpleasant guise when he fell out with his old friend, Eddie Straiton.
In the summer of 1981, Eddie was summoned to appear in front of the Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons on a charge of bringing discredit on the profession. He had stated on BBC Radio’s ‘Jimmy Young Show’ that he had ‘raced’ his young assistants to see who could neuter a cat the fastest and that, during one race, he had inadvertently opened up one supposedly female cat only to discover that it was a tom.
With Eddie having always been an extrovert character, this story was meant as a humorous aside but there were those who did not see the funny side of it. On 29 September 1981, he found himself, not for the first time, standing before the Disciplinary Committee. Some character witnesses would clearly have helped Eddie’s case and an obvious one was Alf Wight – one of Eddie’s oldest and most respected friends – but Alf had declined to appear on his behalf.
In Graham Lord’s biography of James Herriot, it says that Eddie claims that the reason Alf did not support him was because he was due to be made a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons – an extremely high honour in the British veterinary profession – and that he did not want to jeopardise this in any way.
I am greatly saddened that Eddie could think so poorly of one of his most loyal friends; one who had stood by him steadfastly through an eventful and sometimes controversial career. Not only was Alf not informed of his impending honour until two months afterEddie’s disciplinary hearing, but he would never have sacrificed the interests of one of his friends for the purpose of adding yet another honour to his already impressive list.
Alf, in fact, disapproved of Eddie’s remarks about the ‘spay race’. He considered that his friend – by asserting that he could neuter a cat with lightning speed – had demeaned the skills of his profession. Knowing well that spaying a cat is not always the simple and straightforward operation that many believe it to be, he felt that Eddie’s remarks had been in poor taste. However, Eddie Straiton had been a staunch supporter of the profession in the past, and Alf would have appeared on his behalf to stress his many admirable qualities had he not been, at that time, tormented with the pain of renal colic.
Eddie, deeply upset over Alf’s hesitation in offering him his support, and under immense pressure not only from the impending disciplinary hearing but also from the imminent death of his wife from terminal cancer, allowed his feelings to spill over with the use of some very strong words. His impulsive and misguided accusations very sadly inflicted irreparable damage on a friendship that stretched back to their days together in Glasgow.
I well remember the effect of Eddie’s words on my father. Through no fault of his own, Alf Wight was being accused of insensitivity and selfishness by one of his oldest friends. Feelings of intense hurt and disbelief were followed by anger and a determination that he would never have anything to do with Eddie again.