Alf Wight, much better known as James Herriot, became – through his penmanship – a Dales vet of international renown. He had joined the Thirsk practice of Donald Sinclair who, a few years before, had a strong connection with Craven. For several years in the l930s Donald was a Ministry vet based in Settle. Dr Bill Mitchell, having been invited to visit Thirsk and open a craft trail, posted a note to Alf, asking if he might pop in to see him. A week or so later, the telephone rang. Warm-voiced Alf agreed.

As I drove towards Thirsk, I recalled chats with folk who remembered when Donald Sinclair toured Craven farms as a veterinary surgeon. Trim, and with a neat moustache, he appealed to young ladies. He was said to resemble the film star Errol Flynn, especially when he was driving his fancy car, a blue Lagonda.

Donald, continuing his veterinary work at Thirsk, was a trifle eccentric. Alf Wight was delighted to have work, for they were lean economic times. When a partnership came his way, he remarked to his son: “I got my nose in the trough”. Donald was likeable but unpredictable.

I had a little difficulty finding Alf’s private house. It was in a tucked-away village twixt Thirsk and Sutton Bank. The home of Alf, his wife and Bodie, the favourite dog, was shielded by an enormous hedge. Alf welcomed me and I was ushered up a flight of broad stairs into a spacious attic study. The main feature was a large working desk and a computer keyboard.

Computing was in marked contrast with Alf’s early writing career. When he penned the first of his highly-successful Herriot books about the life of a vet in the Yorkshire Dales, he had half-hour fireside stints at the end of working days.

Our hour-long conversation began with Alf sitting on his well-padded office chair and Bodie, the dog, settled between his legs, giving me a fixed gaze. “He’s eight and a-half,” said Alf. “Border terriers go white very early; they always look older than they really are.” When Alf told me he was born in Sunderland, I recalled that my Uncle Fred served as manager of Burtons, the local tailors.

Alf, alias James Herriot, was – on that August day in 1989 – enjoying the first phase of retirement, dealing with back correspondence and trying to keep up with his writing. He did not have a routine, apart from making the most of any spell of lovely sunshine by gardening or walking with the dogs. That day he planned to join his oldest friend in a spell of “very gradual walking. We’ll just put the world to rights.”

He recalled a time when a vet, attending to a large animal, stripped to the waist, summer or winter, and spent an inordinate amount of time with his arms up bovine orifices. Of his early days as a vet, Alf recalled that “we had nothing but ‘white magic’. That is probably what motivated me to write a book in the first place. It was a very funny time in veterinary practice. I recalled all those awful treatments.”

Alf married Joan, a local girl, in 1943. The family had no consulting room in the house where they lived. “When dogs were brought in for examination or attention they were plonked on one of the tables.” The living room also served as waiting room. They had a dining room-cum-office. Accountancy was a simple matter of stuffing money received into a pint pot that stood on the mantelpiece.

Alf drove “a funny old Austin 10”. It had no heater. “The floor was broken and every time I drove over a puddle the muddy water would splash up into my face. The windscreen had become so cracked that there were just one or two places I could peer through.” He chuckled when I told him that my first car was like that. The floor had given way during a trip and was replaced by a joiner who provided a wooden floor – and creosoted it!

Alf had set down his impressions of Dales life in a series of entertaining stories that became best-sellers. His stories were hinged on biography. The first book began with a young vet’s arrival at Darrowby, a composite town, “a bit of Thirsk, something of Richmond, Leyburn and Middleham – and a fair chunk of my imagination.”

Our conversation was taped. I occasionally checked the recorder to ensure it was still working. That afternoon Alf was to go for a walk with an old friend. Before I left, I recalled Donald Sinclair, his former employer. He had been at the Leeds reception at which Alf’s book entitled James Herriot’s Yorkshire had been launched.