He visited a practice in Cumbria where there was a possible partnership but he did not take to the veterinary surgeon there; a future with someone he did not particularly like was not an appealing prospect and that opening too was jettisoned.
His brain boiled with possibilities. He still had offers from both Jock McDowall and Frank Bingham but did not consider them seriously. He did not fancy going back to work in Sunderland. Not only had he grown to love the beauty of the countryside around Thirsk but he did not want to return to mainly small animal work, having tasted the life of a country vet. He realised he would also have to work very long hours unless old Mac changed his drinking habits. Frank Bingham’s offer had the attraction of a life among cows in some of the finest scenery in England but, much as he loved Frank, he could not accept, knowing that he would be doing almost all the work. Frank could spend vast amounts of time with a glass in his hand and Alf knew him well enough to know that he would never change. There was no one he liked more than Frank Bingham, but the easy-going Irishman and the young, ambitious Alf Wight would form a very one-sided partnership.
Eddie Straiton’s offer, too, worried him. Knowing Eddie well, he was aware of his machine-like work rate. How long could he keep pace with him? Some letters he received from Eddie in 1944 gave him food for thought.
‘I have been trying to get time to answer your letter, Alf, but this last fortnight has been something of a nightmare. Ten days ago between 7 and 8 a.m. one morning we received 14 phone calls – all large animal cases and three of them were calving cases.’ In another letter, he wrote: ‘I have now finished my colts [castrations], thank goodness. I did seven last Sunday morning. I have been wanting to get a car with some power in it for you because this is a widespread area and these small horsepower cars just don’t stand up to the work.’ In yet another, he wrote: ‘My wife only sees me once per day at around 6–7 am. One man can only do so much but two men can attain three times as much.’
Eddie Straiton was extremely keen for Alf to join him. With his dream of forming a partnership of Straiton and Wight, he not only offered Alf an immediate and equal share of the practice profits, but he was prepared to allow him an extended period of time over which to buy his share in the business. This was enough to sway Alf’s decision. Despite fully realising that he would be plunging into a fermenting cauldron of work, he could not refuse this opportunity to establish himself in a practice with enormous potential. In the spring of 1944, he accepted Eddie’s offer. Never one to be frightened of hard work, he made preparations to join his workaholic chum in Stafford.
Having informed Donald of his decision, he assured him that he would stay on until an assistant was appointed to take his place. Several weeks elapsed before one arrived and it was Alf who had arranged it. While in the Air Force in Scarborough, he had met a fellow veterinary surgeon called Jim Hancock. The two of them had worked together in the Grand Hotel’s basement where Jim had remarked that it was an unusual sight to see two qualified vets shovelling mountains of coke. The Air Force authorities must have considered them a good team as they were promoted to mucking out stinking piggeries together later in their RAF careers.
Alf and Jim Hancock had become friends, and when it was agreed that he was leaving Thirsk, Alf contacted Jim, suggesting that there may be a job for him there. Jim accepted and arrived in July 1944.
It was then that all Alf’s plans were, quite suddenly, blown clean away; the deal with Eddie Straiton fell through. Eddie wrote to Alf with some disturbing information. With the war still in progress, he said that, despite veterinary surgeons being in a ‘reserved occupation’, he had been informed that should Alf join him as a partner in the Stafford practice, there existed the possibility of one of them being called up into the armed forces.
This unexpected turn of events presented the two young veterinary surgeons with a very serious situation. Eddie, having built up his practice through months of unbelievably hard work, could not take the chance of being called up; the effects on his thriving, but still young, practice could have been catastrophic. With a heavy heart, he wrote to Alf suggesting that their plans would have to be shelved until after the end of the war – an unknown period of time. Eddie’s letters to Alf at that time display genuine, deep-felt sorrow, but he had no alternative.
Alf, now unemployed, with little money and a wife and child to support, had to find work somewhere – and fast. But he was not too downhearted. British agriculture was in a healthy state which meant that there were well-paid jobs available. He began to study the Veterinary Recordfor vacancies, but could see little that really appealed to him. Despite the problems over a partnership with Donald, he really wanted to remain in Thirsk. He saw little chance of achieving this but, to his astonishment, he was wrong.
Within days, the opportunity arose to restart his career in the town he felt was home, and it was his friend, Jim Hancock, who was largely responsible for providing it. Jim had worked in Thirsk for only a week or two before he realised that such a life was not for him. Not only did he find it impossible to adjust to Donald Sinclair’s erratic running of the practice, but he nurtured an ambition to enter the world of teaching and research. When he learned about Alf’s predicament and understood that Donald would accept Alf back into the practice readily – the two men were still friends despite the difficulties of the preceding few months – he generously offered to leave quickly, thus providing Alf with the opportunity to start again in Thirsk.
This unselfish and providential gesture from Jim Hancock marked a turning point in Alf Wight’s fortunes. From that time on, he established a toehold on the ladder of financial security and consolidated his position through years of hard work and common sense. He was to have periods of financial worry ahead of him but never again would he stand in front of his family as a man who owned … nothing.
After Jim Hancock’s departure, Alf felt that the finger of fate was pointing to his future in Thirsk. He still could not acquire a full partnership with Donald but, with every passing day, his love of the Thirsk area grew and, with it, the realisation that this was where he wanted to make his home and bring up his family.
Donald was someone he still could not help liking. He had come to know him well and could see beyond his awkward side, discerning qualities he considered vitally important in a colleague – a sense of humour and not so much as a trace of underhand behaviour. The only remaining problem lay in persuading Donald to accept him as a full partner.
Donald’s lifestyle, through his marriage to Audrey Adamson, had undergone a remarkable transformation. Audrey, who came from a wealthy shipbuilding family, bought a fine, elegant country house, Southwoods Hall, and she and Donald moved there in 1945. Having married into money, he could indulge in some pleasurable pastimes – shooting, hunting, fishing and walking around his country estate which was finely situated in the hills a few miles east of Thirsk. With the persistent nudge of financial worries no longer being felt by Donald, he did not really have to put in too many hours at 23 Kirkgate. It helped, too, that in Alf Wight he had a willing worker as a colleague.
As 1945 progressed, however, Alf decided, in his own words, ‘to be a sucker no longer’. With his standing in the farming community now much stronger, and feeling in a solid position to demand a fairer deal from Donald, he approached him again.
This time, Donald, although still refusing to grant him a full partnership, agreed to Alf having an equal share of the practice profits from 1946 onwards, resulting in a tremendous boost to Alf’s finances. He had received a total of £464, about £9 per week in 1945 but, after sharing the profits equally with Donald, he grossed £1229 at the end of the financial year in 1946, a leap of 265%. He had to work like a Trojan to earn it but he didn’t mind. He was on his way.