Cat Storieshad exquisite water-colour illustrations by Lesley Holmes. It was a runaway bestseller, especially in the USA where it sold more copies than any other previous James Herriot book, staying on the New York Timesbest-seller list for almost six months. After Alf’s death, two companion volumes were published: James Herriot’s Favourite Dog Storiesand James Herriot’s Yorkshire Stories. Both were again illustrated by Lesley Holmes, who not only portrayed the animals so well but captured the magic of the Yorkshire landscape.
Towards the end of 1994, Alf received what was to be the last tribute paid to him prior to his death. It was also one that meant a great deal to him.
In November, he received a letter from the Dean of the University of Glasgow Veterinary School, Professor Norman Wright, in which it was proposed that the new library in the school be named the ‘James Herriot Library’. It was in recognition of his services to the profession and the letter went on to say that the Veterinary School was very proud that James Herriot was a graduate of Glasgow and could they have permission to use his name? Deeply moved by this proposed dedication, he replied in his letter of acceptance: ‘I regard this as the greatest honour to ever have been bestowed upon me.’
He had many tributes paid to him throughout a distinguished veterinary and literary career, but his response to this final appreciation revealed an undiminished affection for the city in which he spent the formative years of his life.
As well as this final tribute from his old Alma Mater, visits to Sunderland to watch his football team served to lighten his flickering last few weeks. Despite his rapidly failing strength, he insisted on following the fortunes of his team – his last visit being in early 1995, only one month prior to his death. He needed constant support when making his way painfully to his seat in the stand, and Joan expressed great concern that he might suffer a final collapse, but Rosie was very positive about it.
‘It is a great thing that he still wants to go,’ she told her. ‘At a time like this, we should give him as much pleasure as possible and, anyway, should he die at Roker Park, what better place to end his life.’ We knew that he had not long to go and I have often thought, since his death, that had he not died at home, he would have approved of ending his days in the company of the red and white stripes – and less than a mile away from Brandling Street where he first looked upon the world all those years ago in 1916.
Right up until a few days before his death, he refused to give in – remaining determinedly mobile by walking around the house and garden every day. I have strong feelings of consolation that, remarkably, he was a bed-ridden invalid for no more than two days. If ever a man fought cancer with fortitude, it was my father.
Many people helped him through his illness. He was so grateful to the doctors and nursing staff at the Friarage Hospital that he gave a very substantial sum of money towards the acquisition of a scanner for the hospital, in appreciation of the wonderful treatment he had received.
Joan, of course, was the person who helped him more than any other. She bore the distress of watching him slowly but surely deteriorate, managing the vast majority of the work in tending to his needs. From their first days together, she had supported him through good times and bad – most of them good – but never would her devotion to her husband shine more brightly than during those final, dark months of his life.
Alex and Lynne Taylor, too, played their part in brightening his days while Donald Sinclair still managed to make him smile as he had done, unconsciously, since they first met all those years before.
The last thing he ever wrote was the foreword to a small booklet about the White Horse Association. It was at the request of one of his friends, a farming client called Fred Banks, who was president of the association. The famous White Horse, which had been cut into the hillside above the village of Kilburn in 1857, is a vivid landmark which, together with the Whitestone Cliffs, formed a majestic background to Alf’s work in veterinary practice for almost fifty years. He wrote the foreword only three days before he died, saying in it:
I had spent only a few days in Thirsk when … I had one of my most delightful surprises – my first sight of the White Horse of Kilburn. I find it difficult to describe the thrill I felt at the time and it is something which has remained with me over the years. As a young man, it was one of my favourite outings to take my young children to sit up there on the moorland grass and savour what must be one of the finest panoramic views in England; fifty miles of chequered fields stretching away to the long bulk of the Pennines.
Alf’s love of writing, and his willingness to cooperate with so many requests, had lasted up until his final days.
In late January 1995, on one of my visits to his house, I was alarmed at his appearance. He was always a man who hid his pain from others, but he could not conceal it this time. He told me that he had an excruciatingly sore point in his back. There was little to see, but to touch the area provoked an agonised response.
The last time that I had seen something similar was many years before, when I had visited my old Chemistry master, John Ward, who was suffering from lung cancer that had finally spread to his spine. He was in tremendous pain and died only a day or two after my visit.
As I spoke to my father that day, I could not help but notice the similarity and I knew that the end was near. I left his house with one thought on my mind – a fervent hope that he would not have to suffer for much longer. He had been through some bad days and it could only get worse.
I did not have to wait long. On the evening of Tuesday, 21 February, unable to remain on his feet, he was confined to his bed. A syringe pump, delivering morphine into his system, helped to ease the pain.
I visited him that evening but his usually lively conversation was absent. Heavily drugged, he could only talk slowly and unsteadily but still managed a smile or two as Alex Taylor reminded him of some of the countless funny times they had shared in their youth.
He deteriorated steadily throughout the following day and soon could no longer speak coherently. I remember, having at one point sat gently on the side of his bed, being startled to see him gasp and grimace with pain. Knowing how stoically he had borne his disease for so long, I wondered what sort of horrendous assault his body had endured to generate such a reaction.
I saw him alive for the last time on the evening of 22 February and I knew the end was very close. I shot out to a farm visit the following morning before visiting him again, but he was dead before I arrived at the house. My mother, Rosie and Emma were by his side when he died.
As I looked at him that morning, I felt utterly alone. The shock of his death was not as severe as the one I had received over three years earlier when I first knew he had cancer; instead, I felt nothing but an overwhelming sorrow, and I knew that my life would never be quite the same again. On that morning of 23 February 1995, the world lost its best-loved veterinary surgeon. His family, and those close to him, lost a great deal more.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Within twenty-four hours of my father’s death, letters of condolence began to arrive on his family’s doorsteps. My mother received literally thousands, while Rosie and I had hundreds to read. They came not only from close friends, but from clients of the practice, local people who had felt privileged to know him personally, former assistants who had worked at 23 Kirkgate, many members of the veterinary profession and, of course, admirers of his work from all over the world. With so many, including those who knew him only through his writing, feeling that they, too, had lost a great friend, we were not alone with our thoughts at that time.