James Herriot
James Herriot
James Alfred "Alf" Wight, OBE, FRCVS, known by the pen name James Herriot, was a British veterinary surgeon and writer, who used his many years of experiences as a veterinary surgeon to write a series of books each consisting of stories about animals and their owners. He is best known for these semi-autobiographical works, beginning with All Creatures Great and Small in 1972. The British television series adapted from the books is also titled All Creatures Great and Small...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth3 October 1916
I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much – in just standing and staring.
That quotation about not having time to stand and stare has never applied to me. I seem to have spent a good part of my life - probably too much - in just standing and staring and I was at it again this morning.
They can't find my house now because I keep it very quiet where I live.
I will write another book if I feel like it.
If a farmer calls me to a sick animal, he couldn't care less if I were George Bernard Shaw.
There was no last animal I treated. When young farm lads started to help me over the gate into a field or a pigpen, to make sure the old fellow wouldn't fall, I started to consider retiring.
I was helped by having a verbatim memory of what happened years ago, even if I can't remember what happened a couple of days ago.
I became a connoisseur of that nasty thud a manuscript makes when it comes through the letter box.
If I had been a little dog I'd have gone leaping and gambolling around the room wagging my tail furiously.
It was Sunday morning (one a.m.), a not unusual time for some farmers, after a late Saturday night, to have a look round their stock and decide to send for the vet.
For years I used to bore my wife over lunch with stories about funny incidents.
And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly
I think it was the fact that I liked it so much that made the writing just come out of me automatically.
Over the years I knew her she always looked at me like that - as though I was a quite pleasant but amusing object - and it always did the same thing to me. It's difficult to put into words but perhaps I can best describe it by saying that if I had been a little dog I'd have gone leaping and gambolling around the room wagging my tail furiously.