James Herriot is the pen name of James Alfred (“Alf”) Wight, Yorkshire veterinarian and bestselling author. Watching or reading his All Creatures Great and Small, we feel like we understand Herriot intimately, but what do we really know about the man behind the stories? From what the Queen told him over lunch, to his occasional bouts of depression, and a serious weakness for dogs, learn some intriguing facts about this talented yet humble family man.
- 1.
He Started Writing at Age 50
Wight’s early ambitions to author a book were sidelined by the long hours demanded of a rural vet. He finally began a manuscript in 1965 after some persuading by his wife. When Wight found spare time in the evenings, he’d chronicle his experiences “in front of my TV set. I could thoroughly enjoy the telly and bash away at the typewriter,” he told The Chicago Tribune.
Publishers turned down his first attempts, but one of their readers suggested he write in the first person since the stories were based on real life. Wight eagerly revised his book and by 1968, he published If Only They Could Talk under the pseudonym James Herriot. (In the US, this and an ensuing book were paired and published as All Creatures Great and Small.) Despite the fame that eventually came his way, The Washington Post reports Alf Wight once said, “If a farmer calls me with a sick animal, he couldn’t care less if I were George Bernard Shaw.”
- 2.
Legions of Fans Called at His Veterinary Practice
By the late 1970s, James Herriot was becoming a household name, his books each selling more than a million copies. “Throngs of tourists had begun turning up at [the practice], with queues snaking down the street on the two afternoons our father set aside to sign books,” said Wight’s children in an interview with the Express (UK). “Dad felt he owed as much to his fans, especially those who had traveled from as far away as the US to see him. While visitors were principally there to see the real James Herriot, and were often overcome with excitement to meet him, they were also delighted if Donald Sinclair (better known to them as Siegfried) made an appearance.”
“Literally thousands of them come to the surgery,” Alf Wight himself told The Chicago Tribune in 1968. “I see them at 2:45 on Wednesdays and Fridays, and rattle my dog charity box [to benefit a dog sanctuary] at them. They’re very generous people. I make about £ 100 a time.”
- 3.
Queen Elizabeth was an Admirer
With literary fame came an invitation for Alf Wight to join Her Majesty for lunch. “Over a private [meal] at Buckingham Palace, she told [him] his were ‘the only books that have made me repeatedly laugh out loud,’” the author’s children tell the Daily Mail (UK).
Another royal encounter came in 1979 when Wight was 62. He was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), “Queen’s Honours List” for services to veterinary sciences. “Dad said to me, ‘I’ve got this OBE, but I don’t think it’s due to my writing at all,’” his son Jim Wight told The Bridgehead Radio. “I got it because I put so much [tax] money into Her Majesty’s coffers!”
- 4.
He Struggled with Depression
For a man who delivered such uplifting stories, it’s a surprise to learn from his son, Jim Wight, that the vet and author suffered from depression at times, and especially after the 1960 death of his father. Jim Wight wrote frankly about these periods of sadness in his book, The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of my Father and told the Daily Mail (UK) in 2010, “My dad had a wonderfully happy life, but it was one that included little periods of depression, or whatever you like to call it. … He couldn’t describe it as anything other than ‘overwhelming melancholy’.”
Both Wight’s children Jim and Rosie were interviewed by the Daily Mail (UK) in 2020, noting that “the causes of [his] illness were difficult to determine. … And [they] are rightly proud of the way [he dealt with it] … while continuing to work, [and] without it allowing to impinge on their lives.” And as daughter Rosie, herself a doctor says, “You don’t necessarily have to be unhappy when you suffer an endogenous depression.”
- 5.
He was a Serial Dog Lover
Wight was never without a dog, according to a conversation he had with The Chicago Tribune in 1968. He was given an Irish Setter as a boy, naming the pup Don. His wife brought a beagle named Sam into Wight’s adult life and the creature sat by the vet’s side during lonely drives out to remote farms. After Sam, two dogs joined the family at once: Dan, a black Labrador, and a Jack Russell terrier named Hector. According to 1968’s collection of James Herriot’s Dog Stories, Hector “was never still … and would peer through the windscreen and seem to take in everything that we passed, [while Dan] … would stretch out on the passenger seat, his head on my knee.” The author’s last dog was a Border terrier called Bodie, “a bit of a screwball—in a nice way,” Wight told The Chicago Tribune.
- 6.
He Worked as a Vet for a Half Century
Wight worked at his profession full time between 1940 and 1980, save two-and-a-half years’ service during WW2. He then proceeded to help out at the practice part-time through 1989. “People often ask me when my father actually retired from veterinary work,” Jim Wight tells the Daily Mail (UK). “That always has me scratching my head. He never really did. He kept coming in, even though he wasn’t taking a penny in pay. He just did it because he loved it.”
Alf Wight practiced alongside brothers Donald and Brian Sinclair (Siegfried and Tristan Farnon in the books), then a string of different students and assistants, and finally, his own son starting in 1967. After close to half a century caring for animals—long after his initial celebrity—Wight fully retired at age 73. The veterinary practice is still an ongoing enterprise.
- 7.
There's a Train Named "James Herriot"
Along with tributes including a veterinary library at his alma mater Glasgow Veterinary College named for him, the World of James Herriot museum, and an annual award from The Humane Society of the USA, the author even has a train named in his honor. The “James Herriot” is a British Rail Class 180 passenger train, traveling from his birthplace of Sunderland, England to London King’s Cross, with a call at Thirsk (represented as Darrowby in the books), according to The Northern Echo, a local Yorkshire newspaper.
- 8.
His Books Have Never Been Out of Print
The James Herriot books have never been out of print since their 1970 debut. They have sold over 80 million copies worldwide according to Macmillan Publishers, been translated into 36 languages according to the Daily Mail (UK), and adapted for film and television. For someone who started with practically nothing, this legacy is a massive achievement. Providing an image of veterinarians as caring for both people and animals, the stories have inspired many to become vets themselves. His focus on the importance of community in our lives gives Alf Wight’s work an enduring power and contemporary resonance.
