In the published version, it is told differently:

‘We arrived at the farmhouse with a screaming of brakes. Siegfried had left his seat and was rummaging about in the boot before the car had stopped shuddering. “Hell!” he shouted, “no post mortem knife! Never mind, I’ll borrow something from the house.” He slammed down the lid and bustled over to the door.’

The flat narrative of his earlier effort is replaced with a graphic illustration of the character of his eccentric partner. The stories of Siegfried and Tristan in If Only They Could Talkare so masterfully reproduced in print that I enjoyed reading about them even more than hearing them first hand.

During the years at the end of the 1960s, when my father was re-writing his book, I was only dimly aware of his dedication and determination. None of us really expected that he would become a published author and, anyway, being young, carefree and finding my own feet in my new profession, I had other things on my mind. I was pleased that my old man was enjoying his hobby but I showed little interest in the final product. That is, until he showed me the letter from David Bolt.

Realising that he must be a better writer than I had thought, I read the manuscript. I read it purely for enjoyment – the way it was meant to be read – and I enjoyed it primarily because it wasvery funny. The fact that I knew most of the characters within its pages made it all the more fascinating.

I could see my father was pleased that I had read the book and he repeatedly asked me for my opinion on it. Throughout his literary career, he seemed to attach great importance to his family’s views on his work and, from that time onwards, I read every one of his manuscripts prior to publication. I provided a fair amount of material for him; he was always on the look-out for fresh stories and a proportion of them, even in the first two books, were based on my own experiences. He had an ear for any little incident, with the storyteller’s ability to turn it into an enjoyable tale.

After my father received his letter of acceptance from the publishers, I wanted to tell people about his success but he felt differently. Years before, he had asked us to keep quiet about his writing, and he re-emphasised his wish that I tell no one.

‘I don’t want anyone to know about this,’ he said to me.

‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘It’s a great achievement.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t like some of the characters in the book to recognise themselves,’ he replied.

I was surprised. Most of them came over as appealing personalities; also, some were so vividly described that I was sure the real people would recognise themselves anyway.

‘Everyone will know that “Atom” Thompson is Phin Calvert in the book,’ I said, ‘and Miss Warner is unmistakable as Mrs Pumphrey!’

My father winced. ‘Not if I keep denying it! These people may not like to be portrayed as they have been. They probably won’t read it anyway, but please don’t say a word.’

He had set the book in the Dales, whereas nearly all the stories occurred around Thirsk. He also placed everything in the period before the war and gave his date of qualification as 1937 rather than 1939; this was to put anyone off the scent in case they tried to find out who James Herriot really was. ‘I want to continue to be known as a vet round here, not as an author!’ he said.

This cautious outlook was typical of his character. His primary concern may well have been that he did not hurt the feelings of others, but there was also a certain logic in this secretive approach to his success; some of the more old-fashioned Yorkshire people could be very prickly if they thought that someone was having a chuckle at their expense.

In retrospect, it seems laughable that Alf Wight should have gone to such great lengths to preserve his anonymity, but he did – never losing the instinct to keep secret the true facts behind his stories. For the next twenty years, he repeatedly asserted that his first books contained incidents that had occurred before the Second World War, and that the characters within them were either very old, or even dead. In fact, many of the stories had their origins in comparatively recent events. He stuck stubbornly to his statement, as though hoping that his true identity would remain a secret, and that no one about whom he had been writing would be offended by their portrayal in his books.

An amusing incident occurred in the mid 1970s – long after his cover had been blown. Old Mr Smedley, from the village of Coxwold, berated him one day in the surgery for failingto include him in any of his books! Alf Wight’s fear of upsetting the Yorkshire folk may well have been groundless.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Alfred Wight was not the only one to be pleased with the sales of If Only They Could Talk. Anthea Joseph was delighted and asked him to consider writing a sequel which, she felt, would add impetus to the popularity of the first book. She soon heard that her new author was on his way already; he had enjoyed writing his first book so much that, by January 1970 – three months before the publication of the first – he had already completed 40,000 words of a new one. With plenty of material at hand and his confidence riding high, he was now fully locked into the ‘hobby’ that had fascinated him for so long.

The completed manuscript of his second book, called It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet, was in the hands of Anthea Joseph in February 1971. The contract – for which he received an advance of £300 – was signed on 22 March 1971, and the book was published in January 1972. Once again, to the delight of my father and his bank manager, the London Evening Standardserialised the book prior to publication. This book received far more publicity than the first, and was reviewed in various papers and magazines.

One review in the Sunday Expressof 23 January 1972, by the then literary editor, Graham Lord, meant a great deal to Alf. Lord’s glowing appraisal of the book did wonders for Alf’s morale who was convinced that this one review, in a widely-read paper, gave him one of the biggest breaks of his literary career. My father, ever the appreciative man, contacted Graham Lord to express his thanks and was to remain grateful to him to the end of his days.

John Junor, the editor of the Sunday Express, liked the book so much that his paper, from 1974 through to the 1980s, was to serialise all the James Herriot books prior to their publication, bringing them to the attention of millions of readers and giving the sales a tremendous boost. John Junor, who was brought up very close to Alf’s Yoker area of Glasgow, was a man with whom Alf corresponded for years, always maintaining that the Sunday Expresseditor was a very influential figure in helping him along the path to success.

Another factor that aided the increased sales of the second book was the adoption of a very different dust-jacket. The jacket of If Only They Could Talk –showing a young carthorse rearing up while being held by a young boy – had bestowed the aura of a children’s novel on it, and was probably the reason for the book being put into the children’s department in the bookshops. Michael Joseph, realising their mistake, commissioned a jacket illustration from the popular artist ‘Larry’ and also asked him to produce a cartoon for each chapter opening, which emphasised the book’s humorous content. Not only did ‘Larry’ go on to illustrate the next four James Herriot books, but he also produced a new dust-jacket cartoon for If Only They Could Talkwhich appeared on the second and subsequent reprints of Alf’s first book.

Eight thousand copies of the second book were printed, a very big increase over the first book, showing Michael Joseph’s confidence in their author from Yorkshire. James Herriot was not yet a household name but his books were selling well; he was on his way.