My dear girl, I hasten to assure you that your feelings of remorse are entirely unnecessary and, in fact, there is something ludicrous in apologising to me, the veteran of a thousand untimely disappearances and as many black and hopeless dawns. I see you describe yourself as a ‘sordid little heap in the Ladies’. Well that’s a good description of me but for ‘Ladies’ read ‘Gents’ or ‘Friend’s back room’ or ‘Back seat of car’ or, in one case, ‘Corner of tennis court’.

Let me further assure you that your ‘awful behaviour’ was probably not even noticed by a roomful of people who had punished the champers for a couple of hours, then waded into the vino for a similar period. It remains rather a blur to me.

I dimly remember the two Michael Joseph men making rather incoherent speeches of thanks to which, they tell me, I made a slurring twelve-word reply. I honestly don’t remember and that goes for a very drunken Tristan and most of the others.

But I do remember meeting you right at the start and that was lovely!

Much love, James Herriot Gill received another souvenir of that memorable evening. ‘Larry’, the cartoonist whose brilliant illustrations brightened each chapter of the books, was also a guest at the party. On hearing that Gill was a doctor, he drew her a cartoon depicting a needle on the end of a massive syringe being thrust into an equally imposing backside. The drawing was completed in a matter of seconds, a feat watched with amazement by Alf; to him, painting or drawing – like mathematics – were pursuits that would forever remain shrouded in mystery.

I have cause to remember that evening as it was then that I heard, for the first time, Brian Sinclair giving a strident rendition of his ‘maniac laugh’, that my father had described to us so often. After the party was over and we were beating our uncertain way back to our hotel, he suddenly let loose. As I listened to the London streets echoing to the sinister, primeval cries, I felt exceedingly grateful that the man causing them was none other than old ‘Uncle Brian’ himself. At heart, he had changed little since those wild days in Thirsk so many years ago.

The fourth book, Vet in Harness, was published in 1974 and was another immediate success, this time with an initial printing of 20,000 copies. The reader is introduced to the larger-than-life Granville Bennett while, in chapter 25, a village cricket match on a hopelessly sloping and uneven pitch is described. Alf, always a great cricket fan, was very proud to receive a letter from Sir Leonard Hutton, whom he rated as one of the all-time great Yorkshire and England batsmen. He had obviously enjoyed the chapter. Dated 26 February 1976, it read:

I have just read your new book. May I congratulate you on the cricket match; it reminded me so much of one or two of my earliest matches in Yorkshire.

Thank you so much for making two dark February evenings so enjoyable. I know the people so well whom you have spent your life amongst. We have them in cricket, too.

This was where Alf scored. His books were not just a collection of stories about animals and vets. His professional experiences were a backcloth to a description of so many different walks of life; there was something in them to interest everyone.

As he kept generating more books in the early 1970s, Alf’s confidence grew. He had attempted the art of introducing flashbacks in the novel that was rejected in 1967, but he returned to this technique for his next two books, Vets Might Flywhich was published in 1976, and Vet in a Spinwhich appeared on the booksellers’ shelves in 1977. So successful was he now, that 60,000 copies of Vets Might Flywere printed by Michael Joseph and they flew off the shelves within a very short time.

These two books hark back to his time in the Royal Air Force and he returned to those earlier days with much greater skill in the use of flashbacks than in his previous attempts. By this time, he was a household name, with his books entering the best-seller lists within a couple of weeks of publication. As each new book was published, it acted as a catalyst for the sales of the preceding titles and, by the mid 1970s, he had sold hundreds of thousands of copies in hardback together with millions in paperback.

Paperback books, of course, sell more copies than the more expensive hardback editions. In the 1970s, Michael Joseph – along with many other publishers at the time – did not have a regular paperback partner with whom they shared profits. They would sell paperback rights to any number of paperback houses, Penguin Books, Pan Books and Corgi being some of the leading names.

With the shelf-life of a commercial hardback book rarely being more than six months nowadays, the paperback edition usually follows a year after the hardback is published – often coinciding, if the author is prolific, with the next hardback. In the 1970s, however, the hardbacks usually continued in circulation for much longer and, with a higher income from the hardback rather than a part-share of a lower-priced book, the gap between hardback and paperback publication was often two years.

Michael Joseph, therefore, were in no rush to sign a contract for If Only They Could Talkwith a paperback publisher and, in the event, they sold the first two books at the same time to Pan Books. The contract between Michael Joseph and Pan was signed in June 1972, six months after the publication of It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet;the serialisation of the two books and the favourable reviews and media interest would not have gone unnoticed by Pan. The leading player in negotiating this contract was none other than Clarence Paget who, in 1969, had encouraged Anthea Joseph to take a chance with the ‘unknown vet from Yorkshire’.

The first two books were published in tandem by Pan in November 1972, with 60,000 copies of each being printed. It would prove to be a wise move by Pan. The sales accelerated throughout the following years as the successive books were published in paperback until, by early 1979, Alf found himself the recipient of no less than six ‘Golden Pan’ awards. Each of his first six books sold more than one million copies in paperback – an achievement equalled only, at that time, by Ian Fleming, the author of the hugely successful James Bond books.

Alfred Wight, although a man who had carved out his life with his own hands, was quick to acknowledge any help he had received in attaining this heady success. The dedications in his earlier books reflect his gratitude.

In the first book, the dedication is to Eddie Straiton. Alf never forgot that it was he who had introduced him to the former Collins executive, John Morrison, who in turn had passed his manuscript on to that publishing house. It was, in effect, the advice of the Collins’ reader, Juliana Wadham – to transform his original novel into a semi-autobiographical account of his life – that was a major turning point in his fortunes. Juliana Wadham was responsible for the addition of that magic ingredient to James Herriot’s work; the fact that his memorable stories were based upon real-life incidents.

The dedication in the second book – to the Sinclair brothers – reflects the appreciation of his good fortune in having spent much of his life in the company of those colourful characters who had provided him with incomparable material for his stories.

In the third book, he acknowledges his wife. In her own way, Joan had contributed more than anyone in helping him on the road to success – not only by gently goading him into writing his first book and then encouraging him to persevere with getting it published, but by providing a happy and stable family environment. One of his favourite sayings was that he wrote his books, not alone, but ‘in the bosom of my family’. Joan, through her enduring support of her husband, was mainly responsible for his family life being a contented and happy one.