It was a full two years later before I fully realised how much this had affected him. I had driven him, my mother and Gill up into the Dales for the day and he and I were walking along a green track high above Summerlodge in Swaledale. In those final years of his life, there was nothing he liked better than being driven across to the Yorkshire Dales; he would sit quietly looking at the places that must have rekindled so many happy memories and, despite his advanced condition, he would always insist on getting out of the car for a moment or two to take in the wild scenery and drink in the fresh, clean air.
On this particular day, it was a short walk; with the cancer, by then, having a firm hold upon his body, he could move only with difficulty. Suddenly, he stopped and put his finger to his lips.
‘Jim, I want to ask you a question,’ he said, looking down at the winding valley of the river Swale, far below. I said nothing, but allowed him to continue.
He did not look directly at me as he spoke. ‘Tell me … have you ever felt that I thought more about Rosie than you?’
I hesitated, as the question had taken me completely by surprise. There followed a silence, broken only by the sound of the wind coursing across the high moorland. I looked straight at him but he continued to stare into the distance, waiting quietly for my response.
‘Such a thought has never even crossed my mind, Dad,’ I replied.
He nodded his head but no words escaped his lips. The subject was never to be raised again.
As we climbed back into the car, I thought to myself, ‘For how long has he been tormented with this? How much of an effort was it to ask that question?’ 1994 was a bad year. We watched him lose weight steadily as his condition became worse, and many were shocked at his appearance during the final year of his life.
From the very first day that the cancer had been diagnosed, he expressed a wish that we should tell no one about it, but it did not take a qualified doctor to know the cause of his weight loss in those last few months. It was as though he was still trying to keep his troubles to himself – but everyone knew by then.
He received a bad setback in June 1994. A sheep had strayed into his garden and, in trying to escape, shot past him and knocked him to the ground. Alf sustained a fracture of the femur and, once more, he found himself in hospital where he underwent an operation to pin his leg. It was another period of severe pain and one that he could well have done without. I have always admired the way he bore the distressing conditions that afflicted him in his last few years. Not only did the invasive cancer induce severe pain, but he had to endure the post-operative distress following each operation. He had managed to steer clear of hospitals for so many years but, at that time, he seemed to be in and out of them regularly.
For reasons that I am unable to explain, the melancholic feeling that descended on him in 1993 did not last long, and the final three years of his life were certainly not ones entirely of gloom. He acquired satellite television which proved to be a boon. He watched hours of sport – especially cricket, football and tennis – and, in addition, he was able to enjoy many of the old comedy programmes that were re-shown. His favourite comedians were a joy for him during his years of pain, and still managed to bring tears of laughter to his eyes.
Despite the dark rumbling clouds of cancer, his outlook on life remained generally very positive as he continued to occupy himself fully. The continuing barrage of fan mail certainly kept him busy and he tried to reply to all the letters that arrived at the house. He walked, gardened and read, just as he had done all his life.
His mind remained very alert and he continued to take an active interest in the world around him. Not only were his favourite newspapers read every day from cover to cover as he maintained his lifelong interest in current affairs, but he continued reading books almost until the end. When I went to see him a few days before he died, he was reading one of his all-time favourites, The Historical Romances of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
‘What a wonderful book this is,’ he said. ‘I have read it umpteen times and it still grabs me! That is the mark of a great writer.’
‘I think that yourbooks have grabbed a few people as well, Dad!’ I replied, wondering whether he realised that his books, like those of one of his most favourite authors, had been and would be, read over and over again and that many of his fans regarded him, too, as a fine writer?
I am not sure that he did. Throughout his life, he always said he was just an average writer who had struck lucky. Rosie and I went to see him regularly, and in the last few weeks of his life, he was often to be found stretched out on the sofa watching the television, but he always gathered the strength to get to his feet. When we left, he always came to see us off with the words, ‘Thanks for coming.’
Thanks for coming?! It was as though he regarded our visits as a duty we felt that we had to perform. We both told him that his company was, and always had been, very special to us; whether this self-effacing man really believed us or not, we shall never know.
His failing health did little to slow down the onward march of the ‘James Herriot Industry’, and in 1993 a video, ‘James Herriot’s Yorkshire’, was produced. It featured Christopher Timothy in some of James Herriot’s favourite locations, and 22,000 copies were sold by Christmas of that year. The health of James Herriot may have been declining but his name stood as strongly as ever.
The video was launched at a private showing in Leeds that October, where the title of ‘Honorary Yorkshireman’ was conferred on Alf Wight and Chris Timothy. As my father was not well enough to attend the reception, I accepted the honour on his behalf. He was very proud to have been recognised by his adopted county – one that he had done so much for.
In 1994, his book James Herriot’s Cat Storieswas published. This book was like the earlier James Herriot’s Dog Storiesin that it contained chapters taken from all his previous books, but otherwise it was very different. For a start, it was a small book and very short. The reason for this was simple – Alf had not written many stories about cats. Jenny Dereham at Michael Joseph read through the first seven books and found only five or six stories which would be suitable; the rest, she said, had a tendency to be about splattered cats arriving on the operating table after being hit by cars. Since the stories were to be illustrated throughout in colour, these were not very suitable. When she heard that Alf was writing one more book, Every Living Thing, she asked if he could possibly write some ‘nice’ cat stories which could go into the later compilation. Alf, as always, helpfully agreed.
Although a great lover of cats, Alf only ever owned a few and then for short periods; this meant that he referred less to them in his writings than to his dogs. He had them as a boy in Glasgow, and he and Joan once had a sweet little tabby called Topsy but, after her premature death, they did not get another for over ten years until Oscar arrived.
Oscar was a stray who turned up on the doorstep of Rowardennan but he was with us for only a few weeks before he simply disappeared one night, never to be seen again. Alf endured the agony, like so many of his clients when their own cats disappeared, of being left with the heart-rending uncertainty of their final demise. He later wrote a story about a cat called Oscar (which was also turned into one of the children’s books) and he gave the story a happier ending.
No more cats were to share Alf’s life until, in his final few years, two little wild strays took up residence in the log shed behind their house in Thirlby. After months of patient coaxing, he finally managed to get close enough to stroke them, but they never became house cats as Bodie pursued them relentlessly. These two, named Ollie and Ginny, made star appearances in both Every Living Thingand James Herriot’s Cat Stories.