James Herriot, real and imagined

I’ve been listening to audiobooks of James Herriot’s books.  Christopher Timothy, who played James Herriot in the BBC Series, narrates the audiobooks. He has a wonderful voice for it- a little bit gravely, tinged with the accents of the Yorkshire Dales. And his voice is flexible enough to encompass the character of Herriot’s wife, Helen, or some of the broader accents of the people of the Yorkshire Dales. I’m especially fond of “Cat Stories” and “Dog Stories”- two collections that include some of the less-familiar stories I don’t have in paperback.

At this point, I’ve read “All Creatures Great and Small” and “All Things Wise And Wonderful” so many times, I can practically quote them as I listen to the audiobooks. I’m less fond of the other two in the quartet. “All Things Bright And Beautiful” doesn’t translate as well to audiobook because it deals with his war years, and there’s a good bit of militaristic shouting. And the feeling of the end of an era permeates “The Lord God Made Them All” so much that it makes for bittersweet reading and listening.

All of James Herriot’s books rely heavily on autobiography, on his years as a vet, starting in the 1930′s and continuing through the Second World War and beyond. Herriot worked at a point of transition. The automobile was replacing the cart horse, and farms were becoming large and based on business models, rather than centered around an individual family or community’s needs. (That, alone, makes these books fascinating, in an era of backlash against poisoned tomatoes, when locally grown food has emerged as a movement.)
Off to Wikipedia for a quick grounding in the basic facts:

James Herriot is a pen name, for Alfred Wight. Wight began writing his memoirs and animal stories when he was 50. Before then, he was far too busy with his veterinary practice. Darrowby is a conflation of two towns- Thirsk and Sowerby.

Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, whose names were a source of comedy in Herriot’s narratives, are also pseudonyms. Herriot’s partner’s name is listed as the much less startling J. Donald Sinclair. And Tristan Farnon, Siegfried’s prankster younger brother, was named Brian. For an especially good Tristan story, see “The Raynes Ghost” from “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” It focuses on a prank of Tristan’s gone wrong, and makes me laugh, no matter how many times I read it.

Some interesting tidbits from All Things James Herriot. He traveled to the USSR as a sheep veterinarian in 1961. In 1963, he traveled to Istanbul as a cattle veterinarian. This is the first I’ve heard about such a trip. I wish Dr Herriot (Wight) had written the story of those trips as well. Maybe I can find it somewhere.

A book about the real James Herriot, written by one of his sons!

I’ll be reading that soon.