The dedication in the fourth book, to his mother in Glasgow, is testimony to his undying gratitude to the woman who, during those difficult years of the depression in Yoker so many years before, displayed astonishing determination that her son would be a success in the world. She was, of course, extremely proud of her son’s achievements, so much so that she began to accost people in the street with the words, ‘Now, you know who I am, don’t you? I am James Herriot’s mother!’ On her correspondence, too, she would no longer sign her name as Hannah Wight – just ‘James Herriot’s mother’.
The dedications in the fifth and sixth books (the former to his beloved dogs, Hector and Dan, the latter to Rosie, Gill and me) were in appreciation of some of those with whom he always maintained he spent many of the happiest times of his life.
By the mid 1970s, James Herriot’s books had become established best-sellers in Great Britain, but it was not only his astonishing success in his own country that bemused him. Long before this, his reputation had spread beyond its shores. With his prodigious book sales abroad having resulted in their being translated into most of the world’s major languages, he had become known as the ‘World’s Most Famous Vet’, but it was his massive popularity in one country that had been largely responsible for rocketing him to international fame. Nowhere was he held in higher esteem than in the United States of America.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
One Wednesday afternoon, some time in the late 1970s, I was aware of a great deal of noise in the waiting-room of 23 Kirkgate. The small animal side of the practice was beginning to expand to such an extent that it now accounted for a high proportion of our income, and it was good news that the waiting-room was so full.
‘It looks as though we’re going to have a good surgery today, Dad,’ I said. ‘That room is heaving!’
My father put his head round the door and looked inside. He strode back into the office with an apologetic smile. ‘Don’t get too excited, boys,’ he said. ‘I’ve just counted two hamsters, one Yorkshire Terrier and forty-five Americans!’
This invasion by tourists of our modest little premises was becoming commonplace. The name of James Herriot had become so famous that thousands from all over the world flocked to Thirsk to see his veterinary surgery. As well as from Great Britain, they travelled from Europe, Canada, Australia and even Japan – but by far the greatest number came from the United States. It seemed that he had become an icon on the other side of the Atlantic.
Alf Wight had always liked the American people. Long before he became famous, he had been attracted to their open friendliness and love for life.
‘The Americans like us,’ he often used to say. ‘Lots of other nations don’t, but they do. I like people who like me!’ As his stratospheric sales in the United States continued, his affection for the people of that country deepened.
Alf never forgot the debt he owed the Americans, always endeavouring to see every one that had paid him the compliment of travelling so far to see him. As these intrusions into their working day could be a nuisance to the other veterinary surgeons in the practice, he set aside two afternoons a week to talk to the visitors and sign their books. The queues down Kirkgate on Wednesday and Friday afternoons were enormous, especially during the summer months.
These book-signing sessions went on for many years and we all became used to the throngs of tourists pouring into the waiting-room. I often watched, with amazement, the excitement on the faces of these people as they shook hands with my father. He meant more to them than just an author whose work they admired; he was someone they felt they knew personally through his warm and compassionately written stories.
Alf, who always considered himself to be a very ordinary man, could never really understand this adulation. He said to me on many an occasion, ‘Here’s me, an ordinary “run of the mill” vet and all these people are flocking to see me as though I was the new Messiah!’ Some who travelled to worship at the ‘shrine’ of 23 Kirkgate were fellow veterinarians with a string of degrees to their names; Alf used to say that he felt a fraud to be treated with such respect. Despite his bemusement, he was, indeed, someone special, with many of those fortunate enough to meet him regarding the occasion as one of the highlights of their entire lives.
I gained a great respect for many of the fans who came to see him. A large number, understanding that ours was a working business, did not intrude; they would simply approach the building and photograph it. Others who came inside displayed astonishing generosity. After signing their books, my father would invite them to give a donation to a local charity that he supported; this was a stray dog sanctuary – the Jerry Green Foundation Trust – that had a branch near Thirsk. On several occasions a £50-note was found when the little red box was emptied. It was not only James Herriot himself who profited from his incredible success.
In an address to the Harrogate Medical Society in 1974, Alf tried to explain the American people’s fascination for his work: ‘I think that the American people like my stories because they are reaching out for the simple things which they, in their materialistic and urbanised society, have lost: old, unspoiled Yorkshire and a way of life so different from their own.’
Through his warmth, understanding and compassion for both his patients and fellow men, James Herriot, in effect, humanised his profession, and the many fans who travelled the thousands of miles to see him found that the real man behind the caring image was every inch the gentleman they imagined him to be.
The tidal wave of admiration from the other side of the Atlantic was one that could, so easily, have never happened. As with his publishing achievements in Great Britain, it was through a small twist of fate that he got his first foothold in the United States, and one man, more than any other, was responsible for establishing James Herriot’s enduring grip on the American public’s imagination. His name was Tom McCormack.
McCormack was the chief executive of the New York publishing house, St Martin’s Press. He flew to London in the summer of 1970 on a buying trip, hoping to acquire some books that would have good potential sales in the United States. He was desperate for something spectacular since St Martin’s was struggling to keep afloat. Unless a best-selling author could be found to turn around the fortunes of St Martin’s Press, there was a real possibility that the company would have to close down, with the loss of many jobs.
While in London, he arranged a meeting with David Bolt at David Higham Associates, one of many such meetings he had during his visit. An agent would always try to interest visiting American publishers in books in which they held American rights, where they had a responsibility to the author to try to place the book in America. David Bolt would have discussed a number of the company’s clients with Tom McCormack and when he handed him a copy of If Only They Could Talk, it would not have been with any great hope since the book was very British and an unlikely one for the American public.
If Only They Could Talkhad not been published long and its sales had not caused any ripples in the pool of London publishing. Tom McCormack looked at the book distastefully: not only was it small (Americans like to read big books, preferably about Americans, and at that time were not very interested in short British books), he did not like the jacket which he thought gave it the impression of being a children’s book. He liked the title even less, and when he learned that it was written by some unknown vet from Yorkshire, his interest evaporated. Common courtesy, however, dictated that he did not throw the book back at David Bolt so he packed the unexciting little volume into his case and took it back home. Three years earlier, James Herriot’s work had lain around in London, completely forgotten, and the same fate was to befall it in New York. It lay, unopened, in the chief executive’s house for a full three months.