![]() ![]() ![]() “She told her son to run, which he did, as did the dog. “Someone else I know, a respected vet very familiar with farm animals, was brought down and trampled while walking on a footpath with her young son and dog. I know of two people who’ve been killed in fields full of cows over the past few years." ![]() “Life was simpler then and, although the days flashed past, it was a more sedate pace of life than life today. “Visits in those days inevitably involved a chat, a nice brew and, if you were very lucky, a slice of cake,” he writes. When I remind him of the animals we saw back then, he instantly recalls all the owners and where they are now.īut even then, the country life recounted in the Herriot books was swiftly changing – and as Peter’s latest book confirms, it is even more unrecognisable today. ![]() More than 30 years ago, another national newspaper sent me to Thirsk to visit the famous practice at 23 Kirkgate, then headed by Herriot’s son Jim Wight (now 80 and retired), and I spent the day with Peter on his rounds. It’s at this juncture I should point out that Peter and I go back a way. He started working with Herriot while studying veterinary science at Liverpool University in the 1970s and soon became immersed in the rural vets’ world that then also included Herriot’s partner Donald Sinclair – the real-life Siegfried Farnon in the books – and celebrated characters such as Mrs Pumphrey and her pampered pooch Tricki Woo. ![]()
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