On one occasion, I faced the prospect of having to administer an intravenous injection to a cow. Aware that serious complications could follow a faulty technique, I was worried. Yet again I rang my father for advice.

‘Dad, I have to visit a cow with milk fever.’

‘Is it down?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I suppose I will have to give it an intravenous injection?’

‘You will!’ he replied.

‘Which vein shall I use? The milk vein or the jugular?’

There was a pause. ‘The jugular is a cleaner area to work.’

‘Which is the easier?’ I asked.

He replied promptly. ‘Hector could find the milk vein.’

After I had qualified from the Glasgow Veterinary College in 1966, I returned to work officially for Eddie Straiton, my first job as a veterinary surgeon. It was in the October of that year that I telephoned my parents from Staffordshire. As it was soon to be their Silver Wedding Anniversary, I wanted to know what the plans were for the forthcoming celebrations. At that time, I reckoned my parents’ financial position to be more than adequate and I looked forward to joining the family and friends at whatever party was being arranged. I was to receive a surprise.

‘I don’t think we’ll go anywhere special,’ my father replied. ‘It’s pretty expensive to go out nowadays!’

I thought this a little strange. Twenty-five years of marriage is quite a milestone and deserves some recognition, but there was to be no candlelit dinner for Mr and Mrs Alfred Wight.

The reason was simple enough: Alf was seriously short of money. He had recently visited his accountant, assuming that he had £820 in the bank, but had received a severe shock. He had been informed that he owed the Inland Revenue £800, leaving him the grand total of £20.

On the day he received this sobering piece of news, he went to Elland Road football stadium to watch Leeds United play, having been invited by two young men who used to live opposite the surgery in Thirsk. Alf often spoke later of his feelings at the time. ‘I was there, but I never saw the match. It was like a dream, I thought to myself, “My God! I have slaved away in that practice for more than twenty-five years and what have I got to show for it? Twenty quid!” ’

It seems incredible that Alfred Wight, a professional man of some standing in the local community, could not summon up enough money to celebrate his Silver Wedding; but there were good reasons and many factors were involved.

Alf had earned well for most of his professional life, but not well enough to become a rich man. His words to me before I embarked upon my veterinary career were very true: ‘You’ll make a decent living as a country vet but you’ll never make a fortune.’

Unlike many modern practices, his was, for most of his working life, an agricultural one. The hours he spent driving large distances in his car, although enjoyable, only brought in a limited sum of money. Today, the treatment of family pets and horses generates a high proportion of our practice income, but during the 1960s he still depended primarily on farm work.

Overheads were high. Staff had to be paid and there were cars to be run. The purchase of expensive drugs and the provision of accommodation for the assistants all added to the costs of running the practice, while the cheerless spectre of the tax man was never far away. Many modern, large practices are now run as successful businesses, employing full-time managers, but in those days, in common with the vast majority of their professional colleagues, Alf and Donald Sinclair ran the practice themselves. Neither was an astute businessman, and it must have been very tiring to turn their hand to paperwork at the end of a long day.

Alf was never good with figures and Donald was not much better. It was in 1976, when I became a salaried partner, that I had my first insight into the torrid sessions they endured with their accountant, Bob Rickaby. Alf liked Bob very much but he dreaded his annual visit, the theme of which varied little from year to year.

Alf and Donald used to sit around the old wooden table in the waiting-room, listening to the résumé of the financial year. Donald suffered from a delicate digestion, the symptoms of which usually surfaced during Bob’s visits. He would always sit in a hunched position with his arms tightly wrapped around his stomach – leaning forward and groaning softly at every piece of bad news from the accountant.

Alf adopted a very different posture. He would sit upright, staring out of the window at the old garden, a fixed and distant expression upon his face, and dreamily saying, ‘Y … e … s’ in response to the accountant’s questions.

I clearly remember my first occasion around that table. I was seated next to Donald, who had a large piece of cod protruding from his coat pocket. My father was staring glassily at Bob who, having explained in detail how he had arrived at the figures, asked him whether he had understood.

‘No,’ replied my father.

The accountant was very thorough, attaching great importance to his clients’ understanding of their financial position. He took a deep breath, removed his spectacles before giving them a polish, and began slowly to explain it all again.

‘Listen, Alf,’ he said, replacing his spectacles while fixing my father with a patient stare, ‘let me put it to you in the simplest possible way. You go to the butcher and you buy two pounds of sausages … are you with me so far?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right,’ Bob continued, ‘the sausages are five shillings per pound, so you give the butcher ten shillings. OK?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good! Now, these sausages that you have bought have actually cost you more than ten shillings, haven’t they?’ said Bob.

‘Why?’

‘Because they have been paid for out of taxed income.’ My father stared silently out at the garden. Bob looked at him closely before ploughing on. ‘You have already paid tax on that money you handed over to the butcher. Do you understand the analogy with the subject that we were discussing?’

‘No.’

Bob took another deep breath. ‘Well, let’s put it another way, Alf. The butcher asks for less than ten shillings –’

At this point, my father came to life. ‘It’s all right, Bob! Look, we trust you! Just carry on! You could boil me in oil and I would never understand these figures.’

Bob looked at the blank faces around the table. He hesitated before going on to another point. It was an unwelcome one. ‘Very well. Now, let me see, ah yes. I’m afraid you owe the practice four hundred pounds, Donald.’

Donald gave a hollow groan and lurched forward in his chair. ‘Why?’ he asked, quite reasonably.

‘You have overdrawn!’

Donald sat bolt upright. ‘Bloody hell, Bob!’ he shouted. ‘You’re always giving us bad news! Why can’t you give us some good news for a change?’

Bob was unruffled. ‘If you look at the profits, Donald, there issome good news –’

‘Not for me, there isn’t!’ interrupted Donald, tightening the grip around his waistline. I could see from the expression on his face that his digestive system was in ferment.

Bob continued to explain that the practice was really ‘not doing too badly’, but that expenses had to be met, and that the taxman wanted his cut.

‘Not too badly, you say?’ said Donald. ‘I think we are going out of business. We pay out huge bills and nothing is coming in. We are going under! What do you think, Alfred? Don’t you think we are going to the wall?’ He nervously fingered the fish in his pocket.

My father continued to gaze out of the window, but a fleeting spasm crossed his face. We sat silently for a few moments, trying valiantly to grasp the facts and figures.

‘How much can I have, Bob?’ Donald exclaimed suddenly. ‘How much is my share?’ I had the feeling that my senior partner’s limited store of patience was almost exhausted.