Many other ingenious schemes were put forward by the London accountants – varying from buying large tracts of forestry to owning racehorses. One way of limiting the tax burden was by setting up trusts that would benefit his relatives several generations down the family tree. This was an efficient means of tax avoidance but it meant that his immediate family would hardly benefit from his earnings.

‘Why should I give my money to someone I am never going to know?’ was his response. ‘I can just picture some young person, years from now, fingering my money and celebrating the memory of an unknown great, great grandpappy Wight! No, I would rather pay more tax and give a little of what is left to the family that I know.’ Not surprisingly, I agreed with him.

One way that he did achieve a little tax relief was by putting my mother and me onto the payroll. My mother helped with his increasing piles of correspondence while I read his manuscripts as well as providing him with several incidents for his stories. The tax man fought this tooth and nail – and we were only allowed a very small sum – but at least it was a minor victory in his continuing war against the punitive taxation laws.

In desperation, one of the accountants said to him, ‘Look, there are only two really best-selling authors still living in this country – you and Jack Higgins. Why not telephone him and find out how he tackles this problem?’

Jack Higgins had achieved phenomenal success with his novel The Eagle Has Landed, and Alf seemed to remember that he was living somewhere in South Yorkshire. He eventually managed to discover his address only to receive a brief, taped message on the telephone to the effect that Mr Higgins was now in residence on the island of Jersey! He, too, had failed to defeat the Inland Revenue.

Alf’s determination never to live overseas, with the resulting payment of colossal sums to Her Majesty’s Chancellor, meant that it would be many years before he could call himself a seriously wealthy man.

He said to his accountant, Bob Rickaby, one day, ‘I get masses of letters asking me to donate money to good causes and fund scholarships for veterinary schools. They must all think I’m a millionaire.’

‘You could have been,’ replied Bob, ‘but by living in this country you have written five books for the tax man and one for yourself!’

To his credit, Alf did not let his failure to amass huge sums of money worry him. His agent, Jacqueline Korn, said to me recentiy that, of all the best-selling authors whose literary affairs she has looked after, he was the one whose fame altered his lifestyle the least.

Although Alf had been pitched into the world of the celebrity, the vast majority of his time was still spent as a veterinary surgeon in Thirsk. The practice of Sinclair and Wight, in the early 1970s, was busy, and still only a four-man operation. It would have been impossible to run the business with any fewer, and Alf worked full time for the following ten years, right up until 1980 when more assistance was acquired. By then, he was almost sixty-five years old, and was entitled to take his foot off the pedal a little.

He and I always got on well together and there were occasions when I was grateful for his compassionate approach to his younger colleagues. In those early years of the 1970s when I was living at home, he observed on many occasions my delicate condition after an evening on the town. As the telephone was by his bedside, he took the night calls when I was on duty. I always heard the ringing in my room – an unwelcome noise it was in the early hours of the morning. He had two ways of answering these calls. His usual response was, ‘Very well, we’llbe out’ – in which case I knew it would be me crawling out of my bed. On the odd happy occasion, however, I would hear him say, ‘Right, I’llbe out.’ This meant that he had felt sympathy for his wayward son, and would soon be on his way to a cold farmyard while I buried my head deeper into the pillow. These are some of my fondest memories of a merciful father.

I did not always get off so lightly. On one occasion, he was scanning the list of work for the day. ‘Let me see, now,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘There is a visit to Felixkirk to see a poorly calf, and what have we here? Oh yes, a trip to Ainsley of Nevison House to castrate twenty large bulls.’

‘Which one do you want me to do?’ I asked tentatively. Ainsley’s beasts were noted for their huge size and lightning response to any form of interference.

‘I’ll just get my crystal ball,’ he replied, cupping his hands around the imaginary object. ‘Yes, James, I see good old Nevison House … and, yes, there is a scene of high activity. I see flying feet, I hear bad language and … yes …’ he continued, looking directly at my face, ‘I see a bearded figure!’

There was always plenty of humour in the practice as my father enjoyed watching his young colleagues learning the tricks of the trade. One day, one of our assistants, while visiting a group of young pigs suffering from a disease called ‘Bowel oedema’, had injected two particularly badly affected ones that had been exhibiting severe convulsions. Several days passed without his learning the result of his treatment, and this concerned him.

‘Don’t ask!’ advised Alf. ‘A silence means they are either better, or they are dead.’

The young veterinary surgeon who was, naturally, itching to know what had happened, saw the owner of the pigs shortly afterwards, an elderly, bent man, walking along the street. He approached him.

‘Now then, Mr Braithwaite!’ he said. ‘How are those pigs of yours getting on?’

‘Nicely, thank yer,’ replied the old man. ‘Doin’ right well!’

‘Oh good,’ said the assistant, with some relief.

Mr Braithwaite took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at the young vet. ‘Them two you injected died, but ’t rest are awright!’

On hearing the story, my father retorted, ‘I told you not to ask him!’

His advice to me in my early days as a veterinary surgeon was of paramount importance. While I was full of the latest theoretical knowledge, he had the advantage of years of practical experience – and there were plenty of lessons to be learned.

On one occasion in 1970, Alex Talbot (the other assistant in the practice at the time) and I were operating on a Labrador. This big, friendly dog had the unfortunate tendency to consume large quantities of socks, shirts, old trousers – in fact, anything that was soft enough to pass down his enormous gullet.

These unscheduled eating episodes were frequently followed by emergency operations to remove the offending substances and he soon became one of our most valued customers. On this occasion he had feasted upon a long piece of highly-coloured cloth and, having opened his abdomen, we had made several incisions into his intestinal tract but could not remove the cloth in one piece; it seemed to be firmly anchored somewhere. The operation was beginning to assume epic proportions when my father walked in.

‘What’s the problem, boys?’ he asked.

I explained, through clenched teeth, that we had opened up several holes in the dog’s digestive system but that the cloth was still tightly anchored.

He looked at the gaping wound and the perspiring faces of his two young assistants before opening the dog’s mouth.

‘This is interesting,’ he said quietly and began to extract, very gently, a long piece of colourful material out of the animal’s mouth. There seemed to be no end to it as he continued pulling. When he had finally finished, he tossed the entire heap nonchalantly into the waste bin.

‘There was some string attached to the cloth and this was wrapped around his tongue. I don’t think you will have any more trouble!’ He walked quietly out of the room to a deafening silence. It had taken him less than one minute to solve the problem.