Discover Yorkshire - All Creatures Great and Small

 

Wright, who is the star of the documentary series The Yorkshire Vet (Tue 8pm Channel 5), was Alf’s protégé and later took over his veterinary practice in Thirsk. “Alf was a very quiet, humble, kind man,” he recalls. “He wasn’t the sort of chap who would push advice down your throat, but if you went to him, he used to regale you with his experiences and it was invaluable as a young vet, listening to what he had to say.”  When the practice moved to a new home in 1995, the Georgian house at 23 Kirkgate where Alf had lived and worked (and where Wright first helped out as a schoolboy) was turned into the perennially popular World of James Herriot – a meticulous re-creation of his 1940s home, complete with consulting room, a dispensary crammed with old-fashioned remedies and a set from the original BBC series.

 

Just as in that adaptation, the valleys and picturesque stone-built farms and villages of the Yorkshire Dales steal the show in Channel 5’s revival of Alf ’s stories, and will doubtless send viewers in search of Darrowby, the fictional town where the young James Herriot earns his veterinary stripes. In the BBC show, the Wensleydale village of Askrigg doubled as Darrowby, while the new adaptation was filmed in the cobbled town of Grassington in Upper Wharfedale, near Skipton.  “Grassington has barely changed over the years,” says Wright. “That’s the beauty of many of these places in North Yorkshire – the scenery hasn’t really changed since Alf’s time.”

 

In the early years of his career, Alf spent a lot of time in the Yorkshire Dales, which lie to the west and north of Thirsk. “He was asked to go and carry out TB testing – one of the main sources of income for veterinary practices in those days – and that’s when he fell in love with the Dales,” explains Wright. “When you read his books, it’s evident that he loved the remoteness of places like Birkdale Tarn. He used to take his children Jim and Rosie picnicking up there on his days off. He fell in love with the area because of its beauty, but also its isolation.”

 

Although his novels put the Yorkshire Dales on the global map, Alf was equally fond of the North York Moors. After all, Thirsk sits between the two national parks.  “He described the view from the top of Sutton Bank on the Hambleton Hills – across the Vale of York and Gormire Lake, which he lived near in the latter years of his life – as the finest in England,” says Wright. “I must admit, it does make the hair stand up on the back of your neck because it’s so beautiful.

 

“The Cleveland Way walk takes you up Sutton Bank, and there are around 1,400 miles of paths for people to enjoy in the North York Moors – just as Alf did all those years ago.  “The North York Moors probably isn’t quite as famous as the Yorkshire Dales, but in some ways it’s wilder and emptier. It stretches right across to the coastline, and at this time of year you’ve got this beautiful bright purple heather. “And then there are the Dales – Farndale’s famous in early spring for daffodils, which come out in their hundreds of thousands.”

 

A wonderful way to explore the park’s wide-open scenery is to take a trip on one of the steam trains that still puff up and down the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, which runs from Pickering to Whitby. “It’s just magic to see them and to ride in the old carriages. It takes you back to the time of Alf and beyond.”

 

As for Wright, he still heeds one particular piece of advice he was given all those years ago.  “Alf was a great mentor – not only as a veterinary surgeon but as a human being as well.  “He once said to me: ‘Peter, you can hold your head up high in our profession if you just do your best. People can’t ask any more than that.’  That’s what I’ve tried to do, and that’s part of the Follow in the footsteps of All Creatures Alf Wight ethos.”