Being married transformed Alf’s life. Although the young couple had to divert every penny into the upkeep of their home, they enjoyed their new lifestyle. Joan loved keeping the place in order, housework being a pleasure to her, while Alf’s work continued to fascinate him. It was also tiring, and he returned to his wife at the end of each day with no great desire to ‘go out on the town’, which was just as well considering the state of their bank balance. He bought a wireless called a ‘Little Maestro’ and the two of them would sit for hours listening to it. Alf was fascinated by the wireless, considering it to be a wonder of modern technology, and hardly able to believe that he could listen to people all over the world, their distant voices issuing from the little plastic box as though they were there with them in the old house in Thirsk.

With Brian Sinclair away at veterinary college, Alf did little socialising, but he still managed to enjoy the odd pint or two, notably with his father-in-law, Horace Danbury. Alf got on well with his parents-in-law from the very beginning. They were both quiet, easy-going people who approved of Alf from the moment they met him. Unfortunately, Horace was not a well man; he suffered from a severe chest complaint that was to be the cause of his death only a few years after meeting Alf. In the meantime, however, the two men enjoyed many a drink together, often before a monumental Sunday lunch prepared by Joan’s mother, Laura.

To Alf’s intense relief, his own mother soon began to take a more relaxed attitude towards Joan. He took Joan occasionally to Glasgow for the weekend and this had the effect of easing the tension that had previously existed between the two women. His mother, able to see that Alf was extremely happily married, would never again express her feelings so vehemently, although there would, for the first few years of his married life, still be an air of slight unease whenever he took Joan north to Glasgow. Alf, satisfied that things could only go on improving, did not let this upset the happiness of his first year as a married man.

Reading was one of his greatest pleasures and he read for many an hour during the long winter evenings. In the summer months he developed a new interest – gardening. It was an activity he would always enjoy, but he would never have a finer place to follow this pastime than the old walled garden behind 23 Kirkgate. The soil was of the finest quality and, with the high walls around the garden ensuring that the plants were protected from the cold winds, it was capable of growing almost anything. Soon there were neat rows of onions, lettuces, potatoes, peas, beans and other healthy-looking greens, while outdoor tomatoes flourished against the walls, and apple and pear trees stood proudly above the packed rows of vegetables. There was a huge bed of asparagus at one end of the garden while, at the other, a thicket of rhubarb grew at a furious rate, developing stalks like tree trunks. Strawberries were grown in the summer and at one point Donald, who was sporadically enthusiastic about the garden, even grew some melons. The place was a gardener’s paradise.

After Alf and his family left Kirkgate, the garden gradually fell into disuse and, many years later, when thronging fans visited the surgery, they would look out over the garden from the french windows in the waiting-room, but there was little for them to see. Two apple trees, the wonderful wistaria and the old walls that still stood as steadily as ever, were all that remained of the garden James Herriot described so lovingly in his books. They would have seen a different picture could they have looked out at the garden when my father was in charge fifty or more years ago.

The reason for the rich soil was twofold. There was always a plentiful supply of manure from the local farms, and this was assiduously dug into the soil – sometimes by a very unwilling Brian but more often by Alf with the assistance of an elderly man called Wardman.

Wardman was a general factotum employed by Donald to look after the property, the garden, the cars and anything else that needed attention. He also cared for the hens and pigs that Donald and Alf kept at one time in the buildings surrounding the yard at the bottom of the garden. Wardman had come through the Great War of 1914–18 and there was nothing he liked better than to reminisce about his experiences to anyone who could spare an hour or two in his dark little den, a converted stable in the yard where he lovingly stored all his tools.

Wardman appears in the Herriot books as ‘Boardman’ and, as the author wrote, he found a willing listener in Tristan. Brian certainly used to sit for hours down there, smoking a long succession of Woodbines and convulsing old Wardman with his inexhaustible store of jokes. The old man looked forward eagerly to Brian’s holidays from veterinary college.

Another reason for the rich soil was that it contained the deeply-buried bodies of innumerable dead animals. One of the problems for the veterinary surgeon in those days was the disposal of carcases. This is not a worry for the modern vet – all bodies are now cremated cleanly and efficiently – but, years ago, there existed only the doubtful services of the knacker man who not only picked up fallen stock from farms, but would call in at the surgery as well to pick up the bodies of animals that had been post-mortemed, died naturally, or had had to be put to sleep. When the knacker man failed to arrive at the surgery – which was frequently – the vets had to roll up their sleeves and dig the bodies deeply into the ground. The garden gradually turned into a giant cemetery, one that grew giant vegetables.

One evening, around twenty years ago, I was with my father in an Italian restaurant in Yarm (he always loved pasta dishes) and, as so often, he was reminiscing about old times. The subject of the garden, and life with Donald, came up. I thought that I had heard all the astonishing exploits of Donald Sinclair, but my father had another one or two up his sleeve.

‘Donald is an amazing man, and I have written about him at length in my books, but there are some stories about him that I would never print,’ he said.

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Well, Donald is a bit sensitive about the way he has been portrayed as Siegfried in the books. He doesn’t consider himself to be an eccentric and I don’t wish to make matters worse by telling everyone about some of his more bizarre behaviour.’

I was surprised. I knew that Donald was a very unusual person but I thought I had heard all the stories.

‘Did I ever tell you about the “hot bones”?’ continued my father with a sidelong glance.

This sounded an interesting one. He then proceeded to recount an episode that illustrated, perfectly, the impulsive and chaotic nature of his partner.

One day, in the early years of his employment in Thirsk, Alf had to put a little dog to sleep. He understood the owner’s grief and performed the sad task with great sympathy and respect for her feelings. He thought that this was the end of the matter but, about three weeks later, she came in to the surgery to thank him for his kindness, and to ask him a very delicate question.

‘Mr Wight,’ she said, ‘you were so kind to me and I am very grateful to you but I have been haunted by something since that sad day.’ There was a pause as she composed herself before continuing. ‘Could you tell me what happened to the body of my poor little dog?’

Alf’s brain shot into overdrive. This was a difficult one. How could he tell the owner that the knacker man had probably picked it up and that his body could be anywhere? Suddenly, he was aware of a presence at his right shoulder. Donald had walked into the room and was in one of his confident and effusive moods.

‘I’m so sorry about your dog,’ he said, oozing charm, ‘and you have no need to worry. He was cremated!’