In memory of Yugsirap
Republishing this series (originally put out by OpalandYugsirap) in an easier format.
Yugsirap was a veterinarian in this area for nearly 50 years and certainly from my childhood perspective the typical “work with dad day” was kindred to the James Herriot stories.
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James Alfred Wight OBE FRCVS (Order of the British Empire and Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) enjoyed a 5-decade career as a Veterinary Surgeon in a rural Yorkshire veterinary practice starting in 1940.
He is better known world-wide for his second career as the author of numerous books and for the films and television series that were developed from eight of his written works set in the 1930s–1950s Yorkshire Dales about veterinary practice, animals, and their owners. His first two books, If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet were published in England in 1970 and 1972. They were combined into one novel and released in North America as All Creatures Great and Small.
While there were 8 books in the series in the United Kingdom, the first seven were combined into a trio of books, with All Things Bright and Beautiful and All Things Wise and Wonderful following All Creatures Great and Small. The final book in the series, Every Living Thing, was published in both the United Kingdom and North America.
Over the decades, the series of books sold some 60 million copies.
The first three North American books were published in the year Yugsirap started University, the year he started his Veterinary studies and the year preceding his graduation. Yugsirap was expecting to be able to make reference to All Creatures Great and Small in the interview component of his Veterinary College Application where it is known that the interview team will enquire about your reading choices outside of textbooks. The interviewer that was covering that aspect of the proceedings switched things up by asking him if he had read Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a novel that had spent most of that year on the New York Times Best Sellers list, and one his mother had given him to read because she enjoyed it. His memorable answer to the question was that he had read the first chapter and didn’t anticipate reading any more.
Yugsirap has been known to comment that most of the characters in Herriot’s books are living right here in the Kawartha Lakes region but is reticent to putting names to them.
As a thank you to a man that lay bare the highs and lows of life in a rural veterinary practice, we are placing a series of caches along the rail trail named after characters in the books.
Enjoy your hike!
Tristan Farnon
Wallace Brian Vaughan Sinclair was a British veterinary surgeon who worked for a time with his older brother Donald Sinclair and Donald's partner Alf Wight.
Tristan was portrayed as a charming rogue who was still studying veterinary medicine in the early books, constantly having to re-take examinations because of his lack of application, often found in the pub, and provoking tirades from his bombastic elder brother Siegfried.
When Wight's first book was published, Brian Sinclair "was delighted to be captured as Tristan and remained enthusiastic about all Wight’s books".
Sinclair seemed rather to enjoy being a celebrity, appearing on television and lecturing at veterinary schools all over the UK and elsewhere.
In 2017, Alf Wight's son, Jim Wight, was interviewed and he discussed the James Herriot franchise. He made these comments about Brian Sinclair (Tristan Farnon). "Brian was accurately portrayed. A young man who was a delightful young fellow, but his whole aim in life was to work as little as possible and have as good a time as possible ... every time [Brian] failed his exams, which he did often when he was at veterinary school, elder brother Donald Sinclair had to pay and Donald didn’t have money in those days ... there was always that love-hate relationship between the two brothers, very well portrayed in that first book."