His life in practice was changing by the day, but it was the passing of many of his old farming clients – men, women and their families, that he had come to know so well – that was especially saddening. As the years rolled by, it was easy to forget that he, too, was getting older.

One day, he was standing outside the surgery with a farmer as a funeral procession passed by on its way to St Mary’s at the end of Kirkgate. ‘There goes poor old Tom! I’m sorry to see him go,’ he said quietly.

‘Aye,’ replied the farmer. He then turned gloomily towards my father and said, ‘They’re pickin’ ’em out of our pen now, Alf!’ Alf had always looked very young for his years, and had a youthful outlook upon life, but this chastening expression gave him food for thought.

A less sombre reminder of the advancing years hit him shortly afterwards. One afternoon in 1982, a woman flagged him down as he was driving home through his village. He opened the car window. ‘Mr Wight,’ she said, ‘it’s about the old folks party in the village hall.’

‘Why, yes, of course,’ Alf responded, reaching into his pocket for some money. He had always supported this occasion. ‘Just hang on a minute and I’ll give you something towards it.’

The woman produced two tickets. ‘Nay, I don’t want no money! These are for you. Enjoy the party!’

Alf Wight had, for as long as I can remember, always referred to his parents and other elderly people as ‘the old folks’. Now, he was one of them.

In general, Alf had enjoyed good health throughout his working life but, with the passing of time inevitably starting to assert itself, he began, when he was about sixty-two years old, to experience angina attacks. As several of his relatives had died of heart attacks, these symptoms were a source of considerable concern but, as it turned out, none of us need have worried; the angina was not to prove the threat we had imagined.

A few years later, in the summer of 1981, he experienced the agony of renal colic. These attacks, initiated by the presence of large kidney stones, were the most excruciating experiences he had ever endured and, for a long time, a bottle of painkilling tablets was his constant companion. He suffered pain intermittently for about a year before the problem was eventually resolved.

He spent a week in hospital at the time of his worst attacks, but he was always convinced that he cured it himself by flushing the stones from his system one evening in the Three Tuns Hotel in Thirsk – assisted by the intake of large volumes of McEwans Export ale.

It was not only Alf’s health that was under siege in 1981. Both Donald and Brian were experiencing serious problems of their own and Donald’s was of his own doing; he stepped in front of a speeding motor cycle in Thirsk market place and suffered a severe fracture of the lower leg.

He was admitted to the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton where the sister in charge of the ward soon informed Alf that his partner was, without doubt, the worst patient she had ever had. Considering the chaos he engendered in the practice over the years, I can well believe that was true.

I visited him one day in hospital. I had been beside his bed for no more than a minute before he said, ‘Thanks for coming, Jim. You can go home now! Goodbye!’

True to his impatient nature, Donald discharged himself from the hospital very quickly. He purchased an automatic car, and stomped around the practice carrying an enormous plaster cast on his leg for almost a year. A simple thing like a broken leg was not going to prevent ‘Siegfried’ from enriching the atmosphere of 23 Kirkgate.

If Donald’s experience had been inconvenient, Brian’s was far more serious. He began to lose weight in 1980 before eventually being admitted to hospital for tests, but he continued to deteriorate steadily throughout 1981. I visited him early in 1982 in St James’s Hospital in Leeds, and was appalled to see his condition. Gone were the chubby cheeks and the twinkling eyes; instead, I saw a gaunt, sunken-eyed skeleton – someone I barely recognised. As I drove home that day, I wondered whether I would ever see Uncle Brian again. The outlook was bleak; no one had been able to diagnose his condition and all treatment had failed. These were desperate times for his family; Brian’s wife, Sheila – like Brian, a very close friend of Alf and Joan – could only watch helplessly as her husband continued to waste away before her eyes.

Donald, horrified, watching his brother visibly fading, was convinced that he was going to die. One morning, he strode purposefully into the surgery.

‘Alfred!’ he said. ‘I have had a word with Sheila and I’m going to Leeds to bring Brian home!’

‘Why?’ Alf asked.

Donald was in sombre mood. He thought a great deal of his younger brother, and the past weeks had been an ordeal. ‘He’s getting no better, he’s going to die, and I want him to die at home … with dignity.’

At that time, a consultant had been specially drafted in to help in the diagnosis of Brian’s illness. My father’s response was immediate. He, too, was deeply depressed by Brian’s dreadful condition but he felt that Donald was wrong.

‘He is your brother, Donald, and it is your decision, but I think you are making a mistake.’

Donald paced around the floor, wrestling with his dilemma, but his mind was made up. ‘No, I can’t stand watching him going to nothing. He’s coming home!’

Alf was never one to interfere, but the life of one of his greatest friends was at stake and he had to say more. ‘He’s only got one chance, Donald, and it is in that hospital. This new consultant just might come up with something. If Brian comes home, he will definitely die. Please leave him where he is. It’s his only hope.’

Donald, racked with emotion, said no more and left the room.

Donald Sinclair was a man with strong convictions – and was never one to listen readily to others. There was just one man, however, to whom he would sometimes listen, and that man was Alfred Wight. Having, from their very earliest days together, had a high regard for his partner’s opinions, he once again took his advice. Brian stayed where he was.

No one really unravelled the mystery of Brian’s condition (thought to be an obscure pituitary gland disorder) but shortly after that conversation in the surgery, a broadside of drugs was thrown at him, following which, remarkably, he began to improve. The drugs were gradually withdrawn as he got better but he had to remain on steroids for the rest of his days – a small price to pay for several more happy years.

Another of Alf’s great friends whose health had given cause for concern was Denton Pette. Having suffered a stroke in 1977, from which he never fully recovered, he died in July 1981. Eve and Denton were some of the first to be asked to the many dinners and celebrations following Alf’s success as a writer, Denton’s open and cheerful countenance being a vital contribution to their enjoyment. Both Alf and Joan felt his death keenly.

Shortly before Denton was taken ill, he and Alf watched a fiercely contested football match between Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Being a fanatical supporter of Middlesbrough – and an equally dedicated hater of Alf’s club, Sunderland – we often wondered whether the excitement of that occasion had contributed towards his stroke.

Denton was another of those great characters who crossed Alf’s life and, as Granville Bennett, will be remembered with great affection by many Herriot fans. Alf wrote of his great friend in the Veterinary Record, ‘He was a true friend to a host of people who will remember him with gratitude for the happiness he brought into their lives.’ He did, indeed, bring happiness and laughter into many people’s lives.

In 1981, Alf’s regular visits to Glasgow drew to a close. For over ten years, he had spent either Christmas or New Year with his mother – and he and other members of the family visited her often at other times of the year. In the summer of that year, however, she was moved down to a nursing-home in Harrogate and was there until her peaceful death the following December. As Alf stood at her funeral, his mind swept back to myriad memories of his mother who had sacrificed so much to ensure that her son realised his ambition to become a veterinary surgeon. She had been a force to be reckoned with in her time but she left us all with memories of gratitude and respect.