“The purple-headed mountain,
the river running by,
the sunset and the morning
that brightens up the sky.”All things bright and beautiful: Cecil Frances Alexander, 1848
Visitors to Yorkshire cannot help but be impressed by the diversity of the English region that has long been dubbed ‘God’s own country.’ There are bustling modern cities like Leeds and Sheffield, alongside areas in which a much older world is thinly overlaid by modernity. Examples include the medieval city wall and the Shambles in York, and the ruins of pre-reformation Abbeys such as Rievaulx, Fountains, Whitby and even Kirkstall, on the edge of Leeds city centre.
As a Londoner born and raised who has spent nearly all of my adult life in Yorkshire, I would, however, choose the unspoilt natural beauty of the Dales as our most impressive environment. And this is where Sunderland-born, Glasgow-raised vet James Alfred Wight landed, almost by chance, in the summer of 1940.
What happened to a vet
Wight, known as ‘Alf’ to his friends and family, qualified as a vet in December 1939. After six months interning in Sunderland, Wight was employed by Thirsk-based vet Donald Sinclair. Donald’s brother Brian was taking longer to qualify than expected, and the practice needed another fully registered vet.
Wight arrived in Thirsk in the summer of 1940 and married Joan, a local girl, in 1941. After spending a short time in the Royal Airforce in 1942, he was discharged on health grounds and returned to Thirsk to focus on veterinary practice with the Sinclair brothers, located at 23 Kirkgate.
Keeping the local farm animals fit and healthy was a crucial contribution to the national mobilisation of the second world war. Wight soon became a partner in the business and continued his association with the practice until he died in 1995.
Also known as …
Who are these people, you might be asking? Well, you may know them better as ‘James Herriot’ and ‘Siegfried and Tristan Farnon’. Because after 25 years working across the Yorkshire Dales, Joan (who you may know as ‘Helen’) encouraged Wight to write up his memoirs.
The resulting books went on to become an international phenomenon, spawning two television series and several films. Like me, Wight was in his twenties when he arrived in Yorkshire, and he lived here until he died in 1995. He fell in love with its people, animals and countryside almost as soon as he arrived.
Wight became the small animal specialist in the surgery, delighting in the advances of pet veterinary services over the latter half of the 20th century. He initially made his career choice due to his devotion to his canine childhood companion, red setter Don, and his dog and cat story compilations contain some of his most poignant writing.
Why ‘James Herriot?’
Wight had to scrupulously anonymise his stories at the time of first publication, because they could have been categorised as a form of advertising, forbidden by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
When my family came to Yorkshire in the 1980s, information about the location of the ‘James Herriot’ practice was not in the public arena. However, during those pre-internet days, local knowledge was in circulation.
In the early 1990s, we took our young children (who especially loved the Herriot children’s story Only one Woof) to see the building, on a Sunday after we had been walking our dog on Sutton bank – an area which boasts “the finest view in England” quoting Wight, whose ashes were later scattered there.
The spirit of the Dales
In those days, Yorkshire people would often be able to guess the real names of the districts and beauty spots that Herriot had evocatively written about. For example, Raynes Abbey is clearly Rievaulx:
“I had always associated the beautiful ruin with the summer sun warming the old stones of the graceful arches … but this was 2.30am in an empty world and the cold breath of the coming winter on my face.” (All things Bright and Beautiful 2013 edition, p.165).
It is this ability to evoke not only the essence of the animals that he loved, but also the ethereal, ancient spirit of the Dales that underpins the perennial popularity of Wight’s stories, and of their ongoing dramatisations.
The latest dramatisation to become an international phenomenon is Masterpiece/PBS’s All Creatures Great and Small, the sixth season of which started on Channel 5 in the UK on 25 September 2025. In the US, it will air from 11 January 2026 on PBS.
The world of James Herriot
Now the Sinclair practice has retreated into history, the real names of the people and locations Wight wrote about have become open knowledge. ‘The World of James Herriot’ museum, dedicated to Wight’s stories and to the history of veterinary practice, opened in 1999, the year that Joan Wight died. It is located at 23 Kirkgate, so visitors are literally walking in the footsteps of Wight as they move around the museum.
It’s a great place to visit, because it is beautifully set out to take visitors back in time to the slower, friendlier society of rural mid-20th century Britain. At that time, the Yorkshire Dales were populated by small single-owner farms and a few relicts of ancient times that were not yet tourist attractions, just an enduring, familiar part of the landscape.
As the museum guidebook advises: “… you enter a time capsule that gives you a glimpse of the life of a busy vet in 1940s North Yorkshire.” The furniture that visitors see in the living rooms and offices belonged to the Wight family, and even the famous tankard that served as the office till is present in the sitting room.
A historical treasure trove
Neil Jones, a director of the museum, explained that the medicine bottles in the surgery are either genuine artefacts from the practice or donated by members of the public who cleared out vets’ surgeries or have deceased relatives who were vets in the 1940s and 50s.
In fact, the environment that the museum has created at 23 Kirkgate is so meticulously authentic, it was recently sought out by the producers of the new Downton Abbey film, who used the sitting room as that of the (Oswald) Mosley family.
The museum also boasts an impressive exhibition of historical veterinary practice, currently the only one in England, along with some interactive veterinary experiences for young visitors. Visitors can view an endearing film about Alf Wight narrated by his son James, which is also available online.
A US phenomenon, too
When we visited The World of James Herriot on a showery Tuesday, we noticed that at least half of our fellow visitors were American. The PBS series has been a great success in the US; indeed, it was an American publishing house that first elevated the James Herriot stories into the international arena.
Thomas S McCormack, president of St. Martin’s Press in the US, wrote of his own discovery of the first Herriot book (then entitled If only they could talk) in 1972: “I took the book back to America, where it lay on my bedside radio … my wife read the book.”
Sandra Danenberg McCormack then badgered her husband to publish the series. In doing so, he reorganised the existing UK books into four compilations, using the chorus of All things Bright and Beautiful to create the titles. It was at that point that sales really took off, in both the US and the UK, and myriad dramatisations followed.
Memories of a green and pleasant land
In these times of cyber-demagogues stirring up hatred and dissension on a worldwide scale, Herriot’s stories of an earlier, slower, kinder time and place appeal to a wide international audience, with a unique blend of animal companions, mutually supportive communities, ancient monuments and green rolling countryside.
A visit to the World of James Herriot reminds people who live in Yorkshire that they are lucky to live near the green hills and dales where Alf Wight’s gentle spirit still lingers. And all who love his stories, wherever they may come from, are always welcome to visit the Yorkshire Dales, to walk in his footsteps for a while.
With thanks to the management and staff at World of James Herriot for the historical information included in this article.
All Creatures Great and Small is currently airing in the UK at 9pm on Thursdays, on Channel 5. Episodes are also available for UK viewers on the Channel 5 website.
Subscribe to our newsletters
Each of our Bylines sends a newsletter every month and we also send out a ‘Best of Bylines, featuring a selection of the best articles from across the network
