He was soon to discover that the big difference between Hillhead School and the veterinary college was that, here, no one seemed to care whether he did any work. In keeping with the regimented discipline at Hillhead School, his teachers had seemed fiercely determined that he should pass his exams, with the reputation of the school being at stake. At the veterinary college, however, the whole atmosphere was almost one of apathy. During his first term, large amounts of time, especially in the afternoons, were spent playing table tennis in the common-room, visiting the cinema, or just going home to do exactly as he liked.

This was not really surprising. The college was only too pleased to have the students there, paying their fees; if they did not work and took fifteen years to complete a five-year course, that was their problem. In fact, there was little incentive to qualify since there were very few jobs waiting for them when they eventually achieved their goal. For the student whose parents were wealthy and willing enough to continue their support, the way of life at Glasgow Veterinary College was an attractive proposition. To some of the students, money did not seem a problem and they did, indeed, take up to ten, twelve or more years to complete the course. Some of them never made it at all, finishing up in a variety of jobs. In the years following his qualification, Alf used to see some of his old college chums during his visits to Glasgow; one he saw serving in a textile shop, and he was startled to see another of his old pals directing the traffic at Charing Cross. Some of these long-serving students became such a part of the establishment that when they eventually took their leave, Dr Whitehouse and his staff bade them farewell with a tear in the eye. In the introduction to his book James Herriot’s Dog Stories, published many years later, Alf described the professor’s reaction to the departure of one of these ‘permanent students’:

One chap, McAloon by name, had been there for fourteen years but had managed to get only as far as the second year in the curriculum. He held the record at the time but many others were into double figures … The fourteen-year man was held in particularly high esteem and when he finally left to join the police force, he was sadly missed. Old Dr Whitehouse, who lectured in anatomy, was visibly moved at the time. ‘Mr McAloon,’ he said, putting down a horse’s skull and pointing with his probe at an empty space, ‘has sat on that stool for eleven years. It is going to be very strange without him.’

*

The building in which Alf received his veterinary education was an uninspiring one, situated on a steep hill on the corner of Buccleuch Street in the Cowcaddens District of Glasgow. This old establishment, formerly a pumping station for Glasgow Corporation, was built of dull stone with rows of tired-looking windows, and bore more resemblance to a high-security prison than a recognised seat of learning. Gloomy tenement buildings looked down on the college from all sides, and there was not a sign of any greenery for as far as the eye could see.

Despite its forbidding appearance, there was a warmth and friendliness within those grim walls. Alf felt a great affection for his old college, but one of the interesting things about the James Herriot books is the absence of stories about his life there. In the years following publication of The Lord God Made Them Allin 1981, he swore that he was not going to write another one. This disappointed me, as I knew it would his fans, and I often reminded him that he still had plenty of material left, including his years as a veterinary student. Apart from a handful of people, everyone was under the impression that he had written nothing about those days apart from the section in the introduction to James Herriot’s Dog Stories. This is far from the truth.

In the early 1960s, when he first began writing in earnest, he wrote a series of stories, some of which were based on his experiences at Glasgow Veterinary College and which he pieced together into a novel. The abandoned typescript, which lay forgotten for many years, has been very valuable in nudging my memories of the veterinary college experiences that he so often recounted to us. In this novel, which was written in the third person, he called himself ‘James Walsh’.

After only three weeks at the veterinary college Walsh knew his life had changed. He had thought that learning to be a vet would be a kind of extension to his schooldays with the same values holding good and the same scholastic atmosphere. True, it would be rather a slummy extension because his first sight of the college had been a shock: a low, seedy building covered half heartedly in peeling, yellowish paint crouching apologetically amongst grime blackened, decaying apartment houses. In Victorian times the district had been the residential quarter of the prosperous city merchants and many of the houses had imposing frontages and pillared entrances but now, it was a forgotten backwater, the haunt of broken down actors, purveyors of dubious trades and pale, stooping women.

It was rumoured that the college had once been the stables for the horses which drew the first tram cars and there was no doubt that the outside appearance of the place lent weight to the theory. A single arch led into the yard around which the classrooms and laboratories were grouped, rather like a lot of converted stables and it was under this arch that Walsh first met his fellow students. His first impression was that they did not look like students at all, at least he couldn’t see any fresh faced young men with blazers and bright scarves around their necks. Later, he found that many of them were countrymen, farmers’ sons, some from the valleys of Forth and Clyde and a large sprinkling from the Northern Highlands and it probably explained the tendency towards dun coloured hairy tweeds and big, solid boots. Two turbaned Sikhs provided an almost violent contrast and the first year intake was completed by a solitary, frightened looking little girl.

There were no frills. No cool cloisters to pace in, no echoing, picture-lined corridors, no lofty, panelled dining hall. There was a common room with a few rickety chairs and a battered grand piano which was mainly used as a card table and a hatch in the corner which served tea, meat pies and the heaviest apple tarts in Scotland. This was the social nerve centre of the whole building and all functions were held there.

But still, Walsh gradually became aware of a pulsing life, warmer and more vivid than anything he had known before. The dilapidated little college was an unlikely stage for the host of colourful characters who thronged it but they were there all the same: rich, vital, outrageous and beguiling.

The college was indeed full of fascinating and often unruly characters. In 1949, it became affiliated to Glasgow University, but in Alf’s day it was not answerable to such a high authority – a fact displayed more than adequately by its high-spirited students. He appeared surprised at the character of his fellow students. A few weeks after he began his veterinary education, he went to the college ‘smoker’ – a kind of introductory welcome for the new boys – and wrote about it in his diary. ‘The boxing was a new experience and very interesting. The lightweights were especially natty. I was a bit amazed at the character of the various songs and anecdotes which were rendered on the platform. There was a good violinist doing his stuff. They are a queer crowd here, all types and kinds, but decent enough.’

Up until this time, Alf had been brought up in a home where drinking and swearing hardly existed, and some of the songs he heard that night must have come as a bit of a culture shock. A more vivid example of the unruly students of his day occurred at the annual prize-giving that November. Prize-givings are usually well-ordered and dignified occasions, but this one was different.