‘Aye.’
‘That one that ’ad husk?’
‘Oh aye.’
‘Well, Ah injected it wi’ that turpentine, just like thou did wi’ thine.’
‘Aye?’
‘Aye, Ah did – an’ it died. Right on’t spot!’
‘Aye? So did mine!’
What strides the profession has made in its fight against disease. Alf often stated that it was more fun in those old days, but it must also have been very frustrating. Today, it is sometimes possible to diagnose a condition without even touching the animal. Blood samples, X-rays, ultra-sound and other ancillary aids have made the job easier, but the modern vet must never lose his ability to use his basic clinical skills. Alf did not have these modern advantages in his formative years as a vet; he had only his eyes, his hands and his brain. Perhaps this fact contributed, in no small way, to his emergence as a first-rate clinician. In all the years that I worked with him, he seemed to have a natural ability to accurately diagnose and treat his cases. Those hard, early days had stood him in good stead.
To survive his physically demanding job, Alf needed to be well ‘fuelled’. In Joan, he had a wife who made sure that his energy levels were well maintained as a succession of fine meals kept heading in his direction. One of the big differences about married life was the superb variety of sandwiches he discovered each day when he was away working in the Dales. Formerly, he had survived on an interminable succession of cheese sandwiches but now it was different. To open every lunch pack was a gastronomic adventure as he bit into succulent pies, delicious cakes, and sandwiches made with homemade bread. As Alf tasted the wonderful food produced by Joan (the deprivations induced by wartime rationing seemed to have little effect upon her ingenuity as a cook), his mind would frequently stray back to his bachelor days in 23 Kirkgate when he, Donald and Brian often had to cook for themselves. On the occasions when the housekeeper, Mrs Wetherill, was away, Donald would roast huge pieces of mutton which would last the men for days. Alf, who was never keen on either lamb or mutton, experienced a dull, leaden sensation in his stomach as he remembered those endless slices of cold, grey meat, with their thick white slabs of fat.
It was not only Alf who realised that he was on to a good thing in his early married days. His college friends, Jimmy Steele and Bob Smith, who had procured jobs in the nearby towns of Knaresborough and Boroughbridge, visited Alf in Thirsk on several occasions. The three men not only had the enjoyment of swapping their tales of triumphs and disasters, but they had the pleasure of sampling Joan’s cooking. Jimmy assured Alf that the experience had convinced him that it was time he looked out for a wife for himself.
The daily consumption of such culinary delights had its downside. Alf, for the first time in his life, began to get fat. His intake of food was so high that even the hard exercise up and down the hillsides in the Dales, or the energy-sapping calvings, rolling about on cow byre floors, were not enough to burn away the calories. Donald was the opposite. He was built like a string bean, with long thin arms and a spare waistline. As one client commented: ‘Ah’ve seen more fat on a fork shaft!’ Another client, Jim Fletcher, remarked to me one day, while recalling Messrs Sinclair and Wight of years ago: ‘When your dad stripped off we used to say, “Where’s ’e come from?” and when Mr Sinclair took his shirt off, we’d say, “Where’s ’he gone?” ’
One thing, above all others, that benefited from Alf’s life as a country veterinary surgeon was his health. The active outdoor life – calvings, foalings, the miles of exercise hiking to the high barns in the Yorkshire Dales – made him feel better than he had done for many years. Alf was deeply appreciative of his good fortune in this respect. He looked back to those pain-wracked days in Sunderland, hardly able to believe that, in so short a space, the healing hand of time, together with the clean, fresh air of Yorkshire, had effected such a remarkable transformation.
Alf’s happy state of mind reached new heights in July 1942 when he learned that Joan was expecting their first child. He was soon to be a father as well as a husband, and the idea of becoming a family man was one that thrilled him. He had a job that he loved, a wife with whom he was exceptionally happy, and a baby was on the way.
There was something, however that loomed over him like a gathering storm. Some sixteen months earlier, just a week or two after meeting Joan for the first time, Alf had signed up to join the Royal Air Force. As a qualified veterinary surgeon – a profession rated as a reserved occupation – there had been little pressure on his serving in the armed forces, but at the time, fired up by the wave of patriotism that had been sweeping Britain, he had looked forward enthusiastically to serving his country at a time of need. As the months had flown by, with Alf beginning to wonder whether he would ever be called up for training, he and Joan had seen no point in delaying starting a family. When his call-up papers did eventually arrive on his twenty-sixth birthday in October 1942, they filled him with gloom. He was now in a vastly different position to that of the carefree young bachelor vet of sixteen months ago. He was a married man with a pregnant wife and responsibilities. Also, having begun to establish himself in the practice, he looked on his forthcoming call-up as potentially damaging to both his career and to the practice.
Just over seven weeks later, on 16 November 1942, Alf Wight boarded the train at Thirsk railway station on the way to serving his country in the Royal Air Force. He was to assume a new identity – 1047279 AC 2Wight, J. A. On that day, he had graduated from the status of an insignificant specimen of the veterinary profession to that of a tiny pawn in the turmoil of the Second World War.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Quite apart from wanting to serve his country at a time when Britain was virtually standing alone against the might of Nazi Germany, there was another good reason why Alf joined up. In March 1941, the German Luftwaffe had launched a savage air raid on the city of Glasgow. The area of Clydebank was a prime target, with the big shipyards on the River Clyde receiving special attention; hundreds of people had been killed. It had been an intensely worrying time for Alf because his parents lived very close to Clydebank. They survived but their house at 694 Anniesland Road, into which they had only recently moved, was badly damaged. Alf had been given leave by Donald to visit Glasgow to see his parents, from where he wrote a letter to Joan giving her an account of the grim conditions there.
My dear Joan,
I suppose you’ll have heard that my house was blitzed. After some searching around, I’ve found that there is no chance at all of finding another place around here as everyone is in the same boat. So, there’s nothing for it but to try to make the battered remains of the old house more or less habitable and to get a good shelter built in the garden in case of a second visit.
Number 694 looks rather like Rievaulx Abbey on a smaller scale but we have managed to make two rooms at the back sort of half safe though it’s dangerous to bang the doors in case the ceiling comes down. It is all rather sickening but I am too pleased that my folks are safe to worry about material things. Mother sleeps at one of the few comparatively sound houses in the district and Dad and I kip down on the floor under a dining table, just in case the ceiling gets tired of staying up. We have reached the stage of laughing at everything so we aren’t so bad. My beloved grand piano had a leg blown away but I’ve managed to get it shored up and, much to my delight, it still plays. I bet it’s queer for people outside to hear strains of music emanating from the ruins!