The James Herriot centenary: a vet who changed his profession

The James Herriot centenary: a vet who changed his profession - Telegraph

"...there's a phenomenon known as "the Herriot effect" that's blamed for the huge increase in popularity of the career as a vet which started in the mid-Seventies. Back in the sixties, a typical vet student was son of a vet or a farmer, and there was no need for academic prowess to get a place at vet school. By the time I was a student in the early eighties, most of us had no rural background and straight "A"s were needed in school exams. The gender balance changed too, with females now making up 80 per cent of new veterinary graduates. The glamorisation of the job by Herriot has played a role in these changes. Budding vet students soon learned that it didn't help their chances of success to mention the books in selection interviews....

"When I took up my first job as a mixed practice vet, in the Scottish borders, I experienced many parallels with his books: I even gleaned useful practical tips from them (such as pouring sugar onto a cow's prolapsed uterus to shrink it down before stuffing it back in). I had the same types of experiences with farmers, both good (hearty breakfasts in the farmhouse after a successful calving) and bad (I used Herriot's trick of reversing the car into the farmyard to allow for a rapid exit in an uncomfortable situation).

"I ended up leaving farm practice, disheartened by the trend away from smallholdings towards large scale production, ending up attending to pets as my full time job. Herriot's tales ring equally true in this line of veterinary work: every small animal vet has clients reminiscent of 'Mrs Pumphrey' and her beloved Pekes, and we've all had occasions when we have difficulty understanding what a client is saying because of a local brogue (in Herriot's case it was a strong Yorkshire dialect, but there are variations on this theme across the world)."

World of James Herriot, Thirsk, Yorkshire, England

If you're ever in Yorkshire, the James Herriot Museum in Thirsk, in Alf Wight's home and veterinary surgery, is well worth a visit. It's about a half-hour north of York. It's a combination museum: The life and career of Alf Wight, domestic life in 1930s Yorkshire, the history of veterinary practice, and the history of the TV series. We spent a fascinating morning there.