James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Graham Lord (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1998

BiographyLarge Print Edition*A Bestselling AuthorFans of James Herriot will relish this affectionate biography . . . A must read for both Herriot admirers and animal lovers. BooklistAll things bright and beautiful,All creatures great and small,All things wise and wonderful,The Lord God made them all.This is the story of James Herriot, the most famous and deeply loved veterinarian the world has ever known from his unknown early days in Glasgow to the fifty years he spent working with all creatures great and small.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Lord, former literary editor and books columnist of the Sunday Express in the United Kingdom, offers a warm, candid portrait of one of the most beloved authors in recent times. James Herriot, born Alf Wight (1916-95), was able to attend veterinary college despite a poor childhood in Scotland. In 1940, he joined a practice in Yorkshire where, though underpaid, he remained for his entire career. After years of receiving rejections from publishers, the unassuming veterinarian finally had a book published in 1970?the autobiographical If Only They Could Talk (Book 1 of All Creatures Great and Small in the United States) under the name James Herriot. Herriot's gentle books on the life of a country vet were huge best sellers, largely because of Lord's early review, and later became films and a popular TV series. Lord's frequent musings on Herriot's embellishing details of his life for print weaken an otherwise strong narrative?after all, Lord shows us that Herriot was modest and self-effacing in the extreme. An entertaining and poignant remembrance; highly recommended.?Diane G. Premo, Rochester P.L., N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A well-tempered, well-researched biography of the world's most famous veterinarian, from novelist Lord (God and All His Angels, 1997, etc.). After buying over 50 million copies of his books chronicling the gentle meanderings of a country vet, readers may feel they have a pretty good handle on the life of Alf Wight, a.k.a. James Herriot. Not so, claims Wight's good friend Lord, whose 1972 review of It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet in London's Sunday Express pushed Herriot to the forefront. According to Lord, the books are pretty much one part fact to two parts creative writing. As he details the life of Wight, from his boyhood in Glasgow to his death of prostate cancer in 1995, Lord never suggests that the vet was anything other than modest, self-effacing, and kind, or that the Yorkshire dales that Wight so magically evoked--``the sparkling streams, the birds calling in the huge silences, the wide-open spaces''--were anything less than cozy in the extreme. But he does want to set the record as straight as possible, fussing with dates, calling into suspicion various war stories spun by Wight, and unmasking the true personalities of Siegfried, Helen, Tristan, et al., none of whom shines under Lord's scrutiny. The author has unearthed plenty of nuggets, such as Wight's nervous breakdown, brought on by depression stemming from brucellosis (transmitted by infected pregnant cows), and the debt Wight owed to an ex-hairdresser from Pinner, and he also does a good job analyzing the simple, direct style Wight brought to his homey material, both in his own critique and in interviews with Wight's publishers and editors. Lord is a bit too bedazzled by the wealth Wight amassed and seems obsessed with the vet's denying that he kept a diary when he obviously did, but otherwise he sticks to the facts, and his ocassional conjectures feel plausable. Doubtless this biography will be a feast for the Herriot hordes. (photos) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 467 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Pr (April 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786213876
• ISBN-13: 978-0786213870
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,970,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Appallingly bad writing, June 26, 2002

By 

Katherine Woodbury "Woody" (Portland, ME) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet (Paperback)

The most positive thing about this book is that it shows you what Jim Wight (James Herriot's son) was up against when he wrote his memoir. I highly recommend Jim Wight's memoir for anyone who is interested in learning about James Herriot (Alf Wight).

I think Mr. Lord may have been well-meaning when he wrote James Herriot: Life of a Country Vet but the book is really appallingly bad. Mr. Lord has no feel for the WWII period, has done no practical research, seems to have little to no perception of human character and relies almost exclusively on gossip and word-of-mouth. One gets the impression that Mr. Lord decided before writing his book what he was going to find and proceeded to twist or ignore any information to the contrary. He relies on those "witnesses" who will tell him what he wants to hear without taking into consideration the inherent complexity of human beings. Witnesses do not always tell the truth--it is a gross error in judgment to think that one person can fully, and accurately, explain another person.

The lack of reliable facts results in Mr. Lord relying almost exclusively on guesswork, and the assumptions inherent in Mr. Lord's guesswork are almost all negative. For instance, he assumes that because he, Mr. Lord couldn't find evidence that Alf Wight's parents were musicians, ergo, they weren't, therefore Alf Wight was lying when he referred to his parents as professional musicians. The point may be debatable but in the interests of good writing, the assumption is not enough. If Mr. Lord wasn't willing to do the required research to prove the point conclusively one way or the other, he should have left it out.

Mr. Lord strikes one as the kind of man who is continually surprised by the inconsistencies of human nature. He reports with something like glee that Alf once told someone that his father died in 1961, instead of 1960. This becomes evidence for . . . the mind boggles. I'm not sure Mr. Lord himself has a clue what he is trying to accomplish in this book. Whatever it is, it suffers from an utter lack of scholarship and is therefore deeply insulting both to Alf Wight's memory and to the reader.

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Lord, you should be ashamed of yourself., November 16, 2004

By 

a-wish-upon-a-star (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet (Audio Cassette)

Mr. Lord could have written a good book. He has the tools and the know-how, and he did his research. He made one fatal error, however. Actually he made not one, but two mistakes. The first mistake is that his starting point is wrong. As a trained journalist, he does as a journalist does - he keeps trying to find "dirt", or rather manufacture dirt - all in order to give us a "balanced view". One can't help feeling, as one reads interview after interview, that Mr. Lord has somehow picked only the disgruntled, caustic and jealous remarks to print. The second mistake was in underestimating "James Herriot"'s fans, and familys goodwill towards him. He treats his subject manner as just another subject, as routine grist for the gossip mill, but Alf Wight was not that kind of person. He was a person totally out of Mr. Lord's scope and understanding. He underestimated Mr. Wight's fans and family's tolerance for having his name besmearched, and, indeed, his son wrote another book in response, a beautiful book about his father, and in it he easily refutes all Mr. Lord's accusations - and turns Mr. Lord into a laughingstock. Because anybody who has read the two books side by side - which I just did - would realize that Mr. Lord has indeed made a laughingstock of himself.

While there are some good parts to the book, they are very much overshadowed by the other parts. There are two good chapters - in the middle - which were written factually - the chapters dealing with the content of James Herriot's first books, and the publishing history. There is a good reason why this is so - Mr. Lord was indeed part of the publishing business and would have been privy to that sort of information.

But much of the book is exactly what he accuses James Herriot of writing - pure fiction. It would take too long to point out every one of Mr. Lord's mistakes, but I would like to simply write just a few of the many mistakes Mr. Lord makes. The rest, if you still want to read this book, you could find out for yourself.

The first accusation Mr. Lord makes about James Herriot is that Alf Wight did not write a semi-autobiography, but rather pure fiction. He maintains that even if this were so, it would not matter, because the books are still entertaining. With that salve to his conscience, he methodically starts to take apart many stories in an effort to prove them fiction.

His first assertion - that it would not matter if it were actually fiction, is simply not true. It would matter, and matter a lot, to both his fans and friends and family. His son says as much in his book- that it would matter a lot if his books are fiction. Fortunately for us, Mr. Lord does not bring a single proof that could stand up to scrutiny. His method seems to be - I don't think this story is true, so it's probably not. That's it. Not one single proof. For instance, he says that Alf Wight's memoirs of his war years are fiction - because the dates are wrong. He says that Alf Wight joined the army in March, 1941, and was discharged two years later, and therefore his story that he was called up to the RAF while his wife was expecting their first child is a fictional story. His son, in his book "The Real James Herriot" explains that he enlisted in the RAF in March, but was NOT CALLED UP until 15 months later, in November 1942, when his wife was indeed, expecting their first child. Is it possible his son and wife might know when he joined the RAF better than Mr. Lord? Especially since Mr. Lord actually admits that he is going from hearsay - since the RAF would not give Mr. Lord access to their records, claiming that they were still classified? This should be enough of a blooper to discredit Mr. Lord; however, there are many, many more - so many that it would be funny if it were not also very, very sad that someone could so easily print a book full of lies and get away with it (by prefacing all his explanations with "perhaps" he covers himself from libel, I suppose).

Another example of Mr. Lord's innuendos - he quotes from one of Mr. Herriot's books that James Herriot was taken aback by the red (and squished) face of his newborn son, and asked the nurse if there was something wrong with the child. Mr. Lord asks how can this story be true if he is a vet? Just so, explains his son, animals are born much more fully formed than humans are. (A horse is born already able to walk as soon as he is born). Mr. Lord falls flat in the mud.

Mr. Lord quotes James Herriot as saying that 90% of his stories are based on real life. Mr. Lord asks how that can be - when the Herriot books say that he joined Seigfried's practice in 1937, when he actually started working there in 1941? Mr. Lord, I think we are ready for a lesson in English. Do you know what the words "based on true life" means? "Based" means "based", not "actually, exactly, fact". When he first started writing, he was hoping to remain anonymous, and therefore disguised his stories so that the people he was writing about would not recognize themselves. He changed the location of his practice to the Dales, he changed the dates, he even changed the characters - some from a man to a woman, for example. He put two stories into one, etc. etc. This all falls under the heading of "based on real life".

There are many, many more examples of this in his book - where he "proves" that James Herriot was writing fiction - and he has no proof whatsoever. Not even one single time.

If there is one person writing fiction, that person is Mr. Lord. Mr. Lord spends two entire chapters on a conjecture of how Alf's childhood might have been like - all based on the assumption that Alf had grown up in grinding poverty. These chapters become almost a farce when we read his sons portrayal of his real childhood - although his parents were not rich they were certainly never poor, and Alf had a very happy childhood. He also explains the economics of why this was so. Which puts Mr. Lord's two chapters of conjecture on how Alf's unhappy childhood might have been like in the category it deserves - pure fiction. While the poverty of the under-class in Glasgow in the 1920's is certainly very sad, it definitely does not belong in a biography of Alf Wight.

Another mistake that Mr. Lord makes is that he constantly contradicts himself. For example, in one chapter he spends many paragraphs conjecturing on why Alf was always poor, when he should have had a thriving practice - and the fanciful castles he builds in the air are very elaborate indeed. And yet in another chapter he quotes a neighbor as saying - "oh, they claimed they didn't have any money but that wasn't true. They had money for everthing - a tennis court, ballet lessons for Rosie, etc." This came across as a vitriolic statement, but of course in contradiction to his earlier assumption that he was poor. Mr. Lord, you can't really have it both ways, can you?

Another example - he constantly quotes Eddie Steanton throughout the book, with all kinds of outrageous comments, yet he himself quotes one of Eddie's colleagues "oh, Eddie always exaggerates, you can't believe everything he says". And later in the book it comes out that Eddie had had a falling out with Alf Wight, and I would assume that his "memories" might be somewhat tainted by those sentiments. And yet Mr. Lord accepts Mr. Streaton as a fully credible source.

As matters stand now, this book is laughable and barely deserving of a review - except for one thing: if Mr. Wight's son would not have written his own biography, Mr. Lord's fictious book would have remained as the factual biography of Alf Wight. He would have succeeded in besmirching Alf Wight's name with his book full of lies (oh, excuse me, fiction). The fact that his son wrote his own biography, and a beautiful and moving one at that, has turned Mr. Lord's book into a joke, a book that his fans would not touch with a ten-foot pole, but Mr. Lord did not know that in advance. He tried to change James Herriot's fans opinion of their idol, by trying to find "dirt" on him, and that was a very low thing. The fact is that he fortunately did not succeed, but that does not take away from what Mr. Lord tried to do.

Mr. Lord, shame on you!

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An Inaccurate and Dull Life of James Herriot, November 22, 2000

By 

James Gorton - See all my reviews

This review is from: James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet (Paperback)

Early on in Graham Lord's book on Alf Wight (known to the world as James Herriot), one begins to question Lord's frequent claim that he was a good friend of Wight. Although Lord certainly knew Wight, and as a reviewer, was apparently very helpful in getting the first Herriot book off the ground, his book is more of a hatchet job than a memoir one might expect from such a self-proclaimed friend.

Lord, for instance, dwells repetitively on the discrepancies between Wight's life and the life of the fictional James Herriot. Indeed, these differences are basically the central theme of this very sour book. It is, of course, interesting that Alf Wight's life, though parallel to that portrayed by the James Herriot character, was nonetheless quite different in many particulars. Lord seems to believe, however, that it is crucial that such differences be magnified and he treats all such differences as a species of lie by Wight. This treatment makes for a consistently peevish tone on Lord's part which makes the book heavy, dispiriting reading. Only an enemy of Wight could take much pleasure in this pseudo-muckraking.

Lord is also no biographer and no historian. He is utterly unable to drop his own preconceptions and prejudices in the face of contrary evidence. The worst instance of this lies in Lord's treatment of Wight's youth and early adulthood. Alf Wight grew up in Scotland, chiefly in Glasgow, during the period between the two world wars. Glasgow today is enjoying a rebirth and its Victorian-era buildings and monuments are being restored and gentrified. For most of the past fifty years, however, it has been a sort of British Detroit, an industrial wasteland of the extremely poor, a well of persistent high unemployment. Knowing this face of Glasgow, Lord incorrectly assumes that pre-war Glasgow was as bad, and that anyone living in it must have been dirt-poor and always living from hand to mouth. In fact, Alf Wight's father seems to have done very well for his family, and every move they made was to a better district and a larger home. Alf was even sent to a fairly posh private school in Glasgow as a boy. Nonetheless, Lord remains impervious to these clues, and takes every opportunity to talk about the Wights' supposed poverty and distress, which from his own evidence is patent nonsense. Similar failures to look past his own prejudices and preconceptions similarly mar the balance of the book.

Finally, it must be said that Lord, though a journalist by trade, is no writer. Perhaps he does better with the kind of breathless, tell-all yellow journalism demanded by Britain's tabloid press. He is utterly defeated, however, by the prose required by a serious book. His prose is leaden and labored at the best. His attempts at subtlety are embarrassingly obvious and heavy-handed. In short, the book is a plodding, badly written affair, which seems to have been given no editorial attention at all.

In short, the mystery is why Lord's book was published at all. The only answer can be the continuing popularity of the Herriot books and stories. Those books, in their warm humanity and poignant stories make a pointed contrast to Lord's sour, peevish book.