Following the astronomical success of The Yorkshire Vet, our reporter, Sophie Mei Lan, visited Peter Wright for the new Mrs. Yorkshire podcast. Here he talks about his ‘beef’ with Jeremy Clarkson as well as his early life working with James Herriot and Donald Sinclair.
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00:00Hey up, I'm Sophie Maylan and this is the Mrs Yorkshire podcast, brought to you by the
00:11Yorkshire Post, where I interview some of Yorkshire's most famous faces in their favourite
00:17places. Today, we're heading to the home of All Creatures great and small author, James
00:25Herriot. Of course, I'm in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. I'm also meeting one of Herriot's former apprentices
00:33and now the face of Channel 5's The Yorkshire Vet, Peter Wright. He shares with me how he
00:40never wanted to be on TV and how the show has triggered Channel 5's so-called love affair
00:46with Yorkshire. This is the Mrs Yorkshire podcast, sponsored by Whitby Seafoods, the home of scampi.
01:01The world of James Herriot is a living museum which radiates the rich history of Herriot's
01:07former home and veterinary practice. As you wander through the 1940s style house, you're
01:14immersed into what would have been his family home and place of work. Even sometimes he
01:20treated animals on his dining room table. It's a far cry from the huge sterile veterinary practices
01:27we know today. Peter Wright, who used to work here before it became a museum, invited us inside
01:34his farmhouse overlooking Thirsk, where he lives with his wife, Lynn.
01:38I'm here with one of the legends who was actually trained by James Herriot. We've got Peter Wright,
01:47the Yorkshire vet himself. Hello Sophie. And how does this feel doing a podcast now? Because
01:52I've heard that you never really wanted to get into TV or media world. I suppose as far as television
01:59goes and the media in general, I was tainted somewhat by my old boss, Alf White, better known as James
02:05as James Herriot, because he didn't need the media in any shape or form. I mean, his books and
02:12ultimately the television programme, All Creatures Great and Small, spoke for itself and he didn't need
02:18the publicity. He used to shy away from the media to a large extent because he was a shy man in many
02:25ways. And he was also a little bit suspicious because, you know, the media, certain aspects of
02:30the media do want to, shall we say in New Yorkshire terms, muck rake over you, trying to find something
02:36sordid that they can put in the tabloids. But the trouble is, he was such a nice man, there wasn't
02:40anything like that. There was no muck to find. Nevertheless, they didn't stop looking until his
02:46dying day. And I suppose he was very suspicious of the media in general. And I suppose that rubbed off
02:51on me. So when Channel 5 asked a production company, Deserbeck Studios, if they would find
02:59a veterinary practice in Yorkshire that had old fashioned views, but were modernising, going
03:06back to the year 2012, 14, in that sort of region, when it was first thought about, they
03:13were looking for a practice with the Herriot ethos, but something that was modernising. I suppose
03:19we'd moved from 23 Kirgit, which is now the world of James Herriot, which was our practice
03:25until 1996. We'd moved into purpose-built premises in Thersk. So I suppose we fitted the bill. And I
03:31think the fact that it was the Herriot practice, because Alf White and Donald Sinclair, who's better
03:37known as Siegfried Farnham, they sadly died in 1995. And so the practice had evolved, and it was
03:45something that fitted the bill as far as filming goes. Alf White, as I say, it rubbed off on
03:52me, this distrust. So in 2014, when Deserbeck Studios from Leeds came knocking at the door,
04:00this lady approached us, sent us an email saying, could she come and see us about making a television
04:05programme? And she arrived, and sad to say, I took an instant dislike to her. And so my first
04:12reaction was, no, definitely not, we're not getting involved with this lot. And I suppose
04:17they continued to caught us. Despite looking at about 60 practices throughout Yorkshire,
04:23they decided that we were the one that they wanted to work with. I'd sort of more or less
04:27told them, no, I'm not doing it. And there were two things that made me think, really.
04:32One was the chap who runs the world of James Herriot. The world of James Herriot was starting
04:39to struggle financially, because, as I mentioned earlier, Alf White died in 1995. And as a result
04:46of that, they, you know, it skipped a generation to 2014. And a lot of the youngsters had never
04:53heard of James Herriot. And of course, the footfall at the Herriot Centre had fallen off,
04:59and he was struggling to make a living. Ian Ashton, who ran it, said, Peter, will you do this
05:04programme? I've heard you, that you've been offered. He said, it would do us a world of
05:08good. I said, well, yes, it would be nice to support you in, but I'm not sure. I'm not
05:13sure about, I don't know whether I like these people. Shortly after that, Paul Stead, who
05:17was the owner of Daisy Beck Studios, came to see me. He had a very honest, beaming face.
05:25He said, look, Victor, he said, look, just trust me. He said, I won't let you down. I promise
05:29you. I'm a loyal person. And I will never, ever let you down. And the other thing was,
05:35he was a Yorkshireman.
05:38Yorkshire dude.
05:39So he sent me away with food for thought there. And I thought, well, Ian wants us to do it.
05:44And Paul is not what I expected before I met him. I built up this ogre in my mind. And Paul
05:50was lovely. And I can honestly say, he has never let us down. But it came to a point in just
05:57before Easter 2015, when I had a phone call from Paul to say, have you made a decision?
06:04And I said, well, yes, I think so. But I'm still not sure. He said, well, he said, look,
06:10I've got to give you, I'll give it over Easter. This was the Thursday before Easter. He said,
06:14I've got to start filming then. I said, have you got a backup? And he said, yes, I have a
06:18backup. I thought, that's great. That takes the pressure off completely for somewhere else
06:22to go. So I picked up the phone. He reiterated the words, Peter, trust me, I will not let you
06:30down. And I said, all right, go on then. We'll give it a go. And the following day, a lady turned
06:36up, that was on the Wednesday, with a camera. And she had the most wicked laugh. And not at all.
06:42I expected her to turn up with sort of horns going out of her head and six, six, six stamped
06:47behind her ears. But she was lovely. And she'd been with us about an hour, an hour and
06:51a half or so. Practice was fairly quiet. She said, shall I go and put a kettle on?
06:55I thought, this is going to work. And that's how it started.
07:01Brilliant. I love that. And now you're filming series 20, which is a huge milestone for you
07:07both. So how do you think, what is the longevity of it? How do you think it's managed to succeed
07:13for so long? When we first started to make the programme, and I didn't think anybody would
07:18watch it. These veterinary programmes had been done before, and they'd become old hat. And
07:23when we started to make it, and the pilot series was a big success. We moved into series one.
07:32And I came home one night and I said to Lynn, my wife, I said, why do people watch this stuff?
07:38And in true Yorkshire fashion, she retorted, well, they're not interested in you, they're interested
07:42in your patients. And I think there's something in that. I think that obviously the animals,
07:49I talk many times about the power of animals, and what they hold over us, and how they enrich
07:55our lives so fantastically well, both as pets, and on the farm side as well. And I think that
08:03has a lot to do with it. And I think also, we're very lucky in that we live in a wonderful
08:08part of the countryside. I feel so fortunate to live where I do, on the edge of the North
08:15York Moors, and with all the wonderful scenery we have about. And I think that's part of it
08:20as well.
08:21Unlike the Harriet days, when he had all these local characters to write about, we still have
08:28a few characters about. And we've tapped into those, and they certainly do help make the
08:35programme. So I think when you put those into the mix, plus the fact, and I think this is
08:41a huge thing as well, Yorkshire folk, Yorkshire people, that are so welcoming, that are so
08:47embracing. Yes, they're called a spade a spade, we note it for being very forthright in our
08:52views. But it's the warmness of the Yorkshire people, I think, that has helped make the programme
08:59what it is. And we have such a fantastic, diverse culture in Yorkshire as well. And I think when
09:05you put all those factors in together, I think that's what helps the Yorkshire vet, being what
09:10it is.
09:11Definitely. And I think people often get lost into that locality of Yorkshire, but also
09:18being, I guess it's like the whole escape to the countryside, where people want to live
09:23somewhere like here. And we're currently in your stunning house at the moment, and you
09:27can overlook fields and farms. And how important is this landscape and the cattle and the farms
09:35to you personally?
09:36Well, I can look out of my window now, and when I look half a mile to the west, I can just
09:41about make out the house that I was literally born in. Because there's a lot of home births
09:46in those days. And I've travelled about half a mile, I suppose, in life. So you could say
09:52I haven't travelled very far at all, really. I have fantastic views over the Vale of York
09:57now, as you say. And I think it's the countryside that I never, ever take for granted. And when
10:04I open the curtains on the morning and look across the Vale of York, I think, aren't I
10:08lucky?
10:08Yeah. And we hear a lot of, kind of, I guess, the difficulties that face farmers today in
10:15the farming community. And there's not actually a lot of vets anymore who specialise in cattle
10:20and dealing with different breeds.
10:22Well, the problem is that everything's become more specialised now. And going back to when
10:31I first came to work in Thirsk as a vet for Donald Sinclair and half-white in 1982, there
10:36were a lot of practices like ours, which were small, mixed veterinary practices, where you
10:42dealt with all species of animals. And it worked very, very well. So we'd have Rippon to the
10:49west, Borough Bridge, we'd have Easingwald just to the south, North Allerton to the
10:54north, and we'd have Helmsley to the east. So it defined very much the area that you worked
11:01in. And it worked very well. And, you know, going back in time, it was a true mixed practice,
11:08as most of them were. In other words, you know, we had 50 or 60 small dairy herds, we
11:14had quite a few sheep, not so many pigs, because it's not a big pig area around Thirsk, so we
11:19didn't have the pigs. We had the small animals, we had the horses as well. So it was pretty
11:24much a mixed veterinary practice. And I think working as a vet, it was that variety that
11:30gave our life the enrichment that it has, really. Because there's so, you know, you'd
11:37be doing a couple of operations in the surgery, and then there might be an urgent call coming
11:42to go and carve a cow, or to go and, dare I say, castrate some calves, or something like
11:46that. So you'd then go out, and then you'd go to the farm, and the farmers would be there
11:50waiting for you with a bucket of hot water, and soap and a towel to wash your hands afterwards.
11:56And you'd invariably be invited in at what we call allowance time, where they'd be going
12:00for a cup of tea about 10 and a half past. And you'd go in and sit down with them and put
12:05the world to rights. Those days have gone, sadly. And that coincided, I think, somewhat
12:11with the demise of farming in the 1990s, where a lot of small family farms gradually, but
12:18surely disappeared off our country landscape. When we stopped doing farm work in 2020, we
12:26had one dairy herd left. And that's a sobering thought. The small family farms have disappeared,
12:33the large farming enterprises have grown bigger. And as a consequence of that, there was much
12:38less work for the country vet to do. So a lot of the people who work on the farms were
12:43quite specialised as well. They'd gone to farming, they'd gone to agricultural college, and this
12:48sort of thing. So a lot of the work that the vet would have done, going back 40 years, was
12:53being taken over by the farms themselves. And especially on the big units, because it was
12:57cheaper for them to do so. As a consequence of that, you know, you've got then farm vets,
13:04like ours at Skeldale, where it just was uneconomical to continue doing the work. And so they disappear.
13:10And that's what's happened with a lot of the country practices round about, are no longer
13:14doing farm work, because it wasn't economically viable for them to do so. And at the same time,
13:20there were practices that have sprung up, where they're employing maybe 15, 20 farm vets that
13:26will travel huge distances to farms, maybe 30, 40, 50 miles even.
13:31Now, is that good for animal welfare? I don't know. That's for the people to decide. I don't
13:38think that it works as well. But it's, it's a way of the world. It's, you know, times move
13:45on, times change. But I don't think the work is quite as enjoyable as it used to be, for
13:52the reasons that I've just mentioned. And so Skeldale became ultimately just a small animal
13:58practice, dealing with companion animals. At that point, I thought, well, should I retire?
14:05Yeah. And I came home, this was 2020. Skeldale was no longer doing farm work. And this, this
14:14variety of work has been my life from the word go. And I said to Lynn, when I got home, I
14:20said to my wife, do you think I should, I should maybe consider packing up now? And
14:26reply again was forthright, as it has been many times. She said, well, don't you under
14:31my feet all day long? So that made the decision for me that I wasn't going to retire. And there's
14:37a practice over at Kirby Moorside that was a true mixed practice dealing with all species
14:43of animals. And I've admired the practice for some time. And I went across and had a chat
14:48with the partners. And they welcomed me with open arms to go and work there. And they said,
14:53look, even if you're not filming, come and work with us by all means. And I was so welcome.
14:59That was four years ago now, over four years ago. And I love working there. We've still
15:03got the, I can still get out on the farms, do the farm work, go and see a few horses, do
15:08some small animal work as well in the practice. And it's a practice that has developed in line
15:15with the specialism because there's four operating theatres now. They've just expanded the practice
15:21again last year. There's four operating theatres. One specialises in orthopaedic work, two general
15:28theatres for surgery, and a theatre that specialises in laparoscopic keel surgery. We've got a CT
15:36scanner in there now, which a lot of the practices roundabout don't have. So it's been a very forward
15:42thinking practice. And it is absolutely booming because it gives a service that people want
15:47because, yes, it's all right me harping on about the romance of my work in the past. But
15:52people expect advances in care of the pets in the same way as they get for themselves.
15:59So when I talk about scanners, you know, scans are available readily now on the NHS for people.
16:05And that's how the veterinary world has to try and keep up. And it all comes at a cost. And
16:10that's the way we are now. You know, everything's costed now. And sadly, it's about business as well
16:16as just being your local friendly vet.
16:18Yeah. I was talking to you off air about AI vets and vets online and people kind of trying
16:25to treat animals online. How do you feel about that side of the world also changing?
16:30I have mixed feelings about that, especially with the AI. Well, I don't know. Sophie, you
16:37probably won't know more about this type of work than I do. But I will say this, and I have
16:42said it, I've spoken to my old university, Liverpool University Veterinary Society about
16:47the challenges they face and the way forward as I see it. You know, with all this technology,
16:53we never must lose sight of the fact that we're a caring profession. We're a profession that
17:01has to look not only after our patients, but after the owners as well. And sometimes, you
17:07know, and I suppose I was a bit of a sucker for this. I built up quite a following at
17:12Scaldale of elderly people who would come in just for a chat sometimes as well. You don't
17:17get that with AI. And, you know, we have much more that we need to provide than just technical
17:25information. We can become too reliant on technology and less on looking at your patient, assessing
17:33your patient that's there for you in front of the table. If you're looking at a dog or
17:37a cat, you've got to assess them, and you've got to assess the general well-being. I can't
17:43see how AI is going to address those issues. Because, you know, in that situation, you've
17:49got problem A, problem B, problem C, and therefore the answer is this, this and this. And it doesn't
17:56always work like that. And sadly, sometimes you've got to a point where you think, well, in this
18:02situation, that things are pretty much tipping against the quality of life of a patient, maybe
18:09we just need to call it a day. And that's just one, I suppose, of more of the sadder examples,
18:14but it's just how it is. I struggle to see how artificial intelligence is going to make
18:20that assessment other than based on a problem-faced issue.
18:25And how do you feel your old bosses would feel about it or how the world's changed?
18:30My old bosses were very different in many ways. Alf White was a very caring man, as was
18:38Donald Sinclair. And what doesn't come over on All Creatures Great and Small particularly
18:44well is that Alf White was a very humble man, which does come over, but Siegfried Fan and
18:49Donald Sinclair was also a very humble man. He was never one to shout about his successes.
18:55He was a very gentle man, but he was very unpredictable, he was very impatient, and he was extremely
19:03eccentric, which he didn't recognise. Alf White was just a very quiet, unassuming man,
19:09and I never heard him raise his voice in anger. He wasn't one for pushing information down your
19:15throat as a young vet, but he was always there with the pearl of wisdom if you needed any help.
19:20He said to me one day, I was a bit glum, I'd lost a patient, I didn't expect it to, and he
19:24asked me what the matter was, and I told him. And he said, did you do your best? I said,
19:29yes, of course I did my best. He said, well, that's all that people can ask of you. Throughout
19:32your life, if you give your best, then no can reproach you for that. So that's philosophy
19:37that I've always taken with me, whatever I've done, wherever I've worked, that's very important
19:42to me. But they were very different, and what would they make of the present world? I don't
19:48think they would enjoy it. Donald Sinclair probably embraced technology more than Alf White, and
19:55he would come in quite often clutching our weekly professional magazine, The Veterinary
20:00Record. He would often come in clutching it, and it seemed so-and-so, and he'd underlined
20:04various things that he thought we should maybe look at considering taking on in the practice.
20:11So he was quite forward-thinking. And when we got the computer system, it just wasn't for
20:16him. He just could not cope with anything like that. They were both people persons. They
20:22enjoyed their interaction with people. Donald talked about technology and moving forward,
20:28but he could never embrace it, because they're just from a different era. And I suppose, you
20:34know, I am now, in my own way now, I suppose I'm considered to be a bit of a dinosaur as well.
20:39No, a sprightly one. And the world really has changed, and you mentioned about All Creatures,
20:48Great and Small. What are your thoughts? Do you watch the series still?
20:52I do watch the series. I mean, going back in time, that's when Alf White's fame catapulted
20:59into the stratosphere in 1979, when they made All Creatures, Great and Small television
21:05series. That's what really propelled him into stardom, particularly in the US. I was a veterinary
21:11student in there. I was in Liverpool from 76 to 81 as a veterinary student, and we used
21:15to sit around this crackly old television set, and I think we had a coat hanger as a television
21:20aerial, and we struggled to see what was going on. We could just about make the gist of it.
21:24All six of us lived together in a house, but none of us could wait to sit down on a Sunday
21:29night to watch All Creatures, Great and Small. At that time, they were getting somewhere between
21:3518 and 19 million viewers every Sunday. I mean, what would television stations, what would
21:42they pay for those sort of figures nowadays? And then we fast forward to the remake, which
21:47was done by Channel 5, the new All Creatures, Great and Small, with Samuel West and Nick Ralph,
21:53Rachel Shenton, and it is wonderful to see. It is a sobering thought. I was talking to
21:59Ben Frow, who was the head of programmes at Channel 5 one day, and he said to me, he said,
22:04Peter, you know, if the Yorkshire Vette had failed as a programme, and my love affair of
22:10Yorkshire would have stopped then, and there would have been no make of Our Great Yorkshire
22:15Life, there would have been no Cannon Hall, and there would have been no All Creatures, Great
22:19and Small remake, if the Yorkshire Vette had failed. Wow. And I was stunned by that comment,
22:24but Ben's is very forthright with his views, his granny was from Yorkshire, so I think there's
22:30maybe a little bit of blood come through there. He's got the tough muck built in. But he was,
22:36yes, and no, he isn't the head of Channel 5 for nothing, but at the same time, it's very
22:41different, the new version of All Creatures, Great and Small, from the old one. They've gone
22:47away somewhat from the books, they've gone away from the old farming characters, which to me were
22:54a huge part of the success of the first All Creatures, Great and Small. But having said that,
23:02I think Robert Hardy and Chris Timothy, they did a fantastic job, and I think they got the
23:07characters off very well. I mean, Robert Hardy spent a week living with Donald Sinclair to get
23:12his mannerisms, and he was a wonderful, wonderful actor. Chris Timothy, I think, it was harder for
23:18him, because Alf White, he wasn't the eccentric, flamboyant character that Siegfried was, so I think
23:25it was much harder, but I think Chris did very well in making the character of James Herriot. Now,
23:30if we fast forward, Samuel West, he had it very difficult. He never met Donald Sinclair. I have met
23:36up with him on more than one occasion, and we have talked about Donald, and he made one or two notes,
23:42because obviously I knew them very, very well, because it was like a family working at the practice.
23:47But he has done absolutely brilliantly well. In some ways, he shows Donald very well, because he
23:54shows a more thoughtful side of him, as well as the eccentricities. I mean, the eccentricities, as young
24:00vets working there, used to drive us crackers, because he never knew quite what was coming next.
24:05I think Nick Ralph, as James Herriot, has done a brilliant job, and Alf White, he was born in
24:11Sunderland, but he was brought up in Glasgow, and so he had a very soft Scottish accent, and Nick
24:17Ralph has, of course, as well, and I think the way he portrays him, I think, is absolutely fantastic.
24:24So, in a different way, with the characters, it's equally as good, even if they have gone away
24:32somewhat from the original Herriot books. But I think everything modernises, like the
24:37vet new world does. And I think, because of the modernisation, I think maybe that had to
24:43happen, and they've embroidered more and brought Helen into it as a character. They are now looking
24:48at a more youthful type of viewer. Hey, the viewing figures are fantastic, so they've obviously
24:54got it right. Yeah, it's always trending on our site. And would you say you'd preferred
24:59the original series or the remake? Well, that's a tricky one. I like them both, but for different
25:04reasons. And I suppose that's the politician's absolute. Yeah, I was just going to say, they're
25:09very diplomatic. I ain't going to... I think they have merits, but in different ways. I do miss
25:17the old characters that were portrayed in the original creatures. I do miss that. But
25:24having said that, I've got to know Samuel and Nick very well. They do a fantastic job with
25:30the material that they've got to work with. So, that's how I'm going to leave you.
25:35Yeah. I'm like, you're like a silly to film series 20. Now we want to get to 30. And how
25:43any series do you think you'll carry on going? Well, I suppose the egg time is ticking away
25:48on me. I am getting older. And, you know, some years ago, probably about four years ago
25:54now, we started to film for a series called The Yorkshire Vet, The Next Generation. And this
26:01is when Donaldson's from Huddersfield were introduced, the four characters there, the four
26:06vets there. I think I may be wrong in thinking this, and this may sound a little controversial,
26:12but I think the idea was that myself and Mr. Norton would be put out to grass, and the
26:18new forward thinking, all super duper next generation would come into play, and we would
26:24be somewhat redundant and pensioned off. But it never happened. I think there's various
26:30reasons why it didn't happen. What has worked is the fact that The Next Generation have been
26:37incorporated into The Yorkshire Vet. And I think it works extremely well, because it puts
26:42a more modern dimension on the work that myself and Julian do. And I think it's enriched the
26:49programme. And I think what they've done is for the better. So I'm glad it didn't end up
26:54as a separate programme. I'm glad they joined The Yorkshire Vet and made it all into one.
26:58And I think that has helped the longevity of our programme.
27:03And how has it helped to transform the world of James Herriot when it comes to the museum?
27:09Going back in time, as I mentioned, you know, before we made the programme, Ian Ashton said,
27:15you know, we're struggling. And they were struggling. And within a couple of series of The Yorkshire
27:21Vet, people coming to Thirsk to see what The Yorkshire Vet was all about. So the hotels were
27:27filling up, the dining places were filling up, the pubs were filling up, the shops were doing well.
27:33And of course, alongside that, the people were coming to the Herriot Centre. Within, yeah, two to three
27:40years of us making the programme, the footfall through the Herriot Centre had tripled. And it
27:46has since quadrupled from those days. So the Herriot Centre is now thriving. And of course, when the
27:52remake of All Creatures Great and Small came along, that made a huge difference as well. It's a
27:58wonderful place to go and visit. It has been voted one of the top small tourist attractions in the
28:0410% of which throughout the world. It is highly regarded. And it is a celebration of veterinary
28:10science in general. But to me, it's my old workplace. It's my old practice. And when I go in there,
28:15I pick up on things there that I would see every morning when I went into work. Things
28:20that people would walk past and not give a glance at. So I look at it somewhat differently
28:25from what the average visitor would see when they go and look at it.
28:29And what should a visitor going there, what should they look for? So, reminiscence of your
28:35past.
28:36Well, there's little things. I mean, even before you go through the door, there's a little box
28:41on the wall. And that box has been there as long as I know. It's certainly been there
28:4550 years. And it must have been made of good wood because it hasn't rotted. It's painted
28:49white and you wouldn't give it a second glance. But when farmers wanted medicines out of hours
28:55or even a small animal client wanted something for the pet, if it was going to be out of hours
29:01when the office was closed, we'd just pop it in that box and they would come and collect
29:05it from the box. And we'd never, ever, ever had anything stolen from that box.
29:11No one came and said, well, you didn't put that medicine out last night. That would only
29:16happen on the occasion that I'd forgotten or maybe Donald had forgotten. But it did happen
29:20again. But nothing was ever stolen from that box. And so I see that box every time I go
29:25in there. And the other thing, when you go through the red front door, which has become
29:28quite iconic now, Lucy Pitaway did this fantastic picture looking through the red door and she's
29:34got sheep behind. And I think she's done a beautiful job with that. But when you go through
29:39the door, there's a second set of doors with the brass handles on. And our cleaner that always used
29:46to polish the brass handles. And it made this lovely clicking sound. And there's a beautiful
29:51mosaic floor and this clicking sound. There's nothing to muffle the sound. So you heard this
29:57clicking of the door when you were in the front office. When we moved to Scaldale, we had this
30:02client came in and one or two, I suppose a bit like me now, someone two clients didn't like the
30:07change to this new modern fangled veterinary practice. One of them said, Peter, I have a bit
30:13of a complaint to make. I don't like your new door. And we do miss that, we do miss that brass
30:19handle that makes that lovely clicking sound when you go in. And it made me think, yeah,
30:25I can see what you mean there. And I suppose been a bit set in my ways now, I would probably
30:30have paid far more attention to that now than I did in the 1990s when we moved to Scaldale.
30:37Yeah, the click in the handle.
30:39And the other thing is, and it's minute, but if you go into the dining room, which was our
30:46office, because of course the whites and Donald Sinclair lived there in the 1940s. So it was
30:50their home. And it's now been transformed back to, as it was in their day, in the 1940s
30:57and 50s. But beside the fireplace, there's a little three-pronged round socket, which means
31:04nothing to anybody. But it does to me because Donald would never have it on a table, but we
31:10used to have a kettle there in the old office beside this big storage heater that we used
31:15to lean up against when we'd been out on a cold day and we wanted warming up. But on the
31:19floor beside that was this kettle that plugged into this little round pin socket. And either
31:26Donald Sinclair, Alf, myself, the secretary, Joan, anybody would, three o'clock time, half
31:33past three time, go and pick that kettle up and go and fill it up. And we'd all sit and
31:37stand there, putting the work to rights, having a cup of tea or coffee. That little round pin
31:41socket means so much to me that the fact that they haven't turned it away when they modernise
31:44the place. I love that. How did you and James and your other boss, how did you all like your
31:52tea? How did you have your brood? Well, we all liked to drop a milk, but not too much.
31:58Donald was peculiar, as I mentioned. Donald would rarely have a cup of tea or coffee. No,
32:03far too unhealthy. And so what he used to do was he would have a mug of hot water. And
32:09occasionally, he would put a slice of lemon in it. That's very healthy. Well, he was very
32:14healthy. He was. When Donald came into work, he always knew if he was ill, if he was suffering,
32:18starting with a cold or anything like that, because he would come in. And invariably, we
32:24knew before we even spoke that he wasn't well, because he always tied this little red with
32:29white spots on his handkerchief round his neck, which I think he thought would help him get
32:33better. Alfred said, I think Donald's about to start with a sore throat or a cold. And
32:37he just knew because of the neckerchief. And we always found that very amusing. It could
32:43be quite abrupt. It could be very abrupt. And we're standing in the front office where
32:47people would come into booking before they went to sit in the waiting room when they're
32:51bringing their pets in on an afternoon. And this lady who came into the office clutching
32:56her little dog, Donald, when a lady came in, he would always jump immediately to attention.
33:03He was always said that Donald was a real ladies' man. And he'd say, good afternoon.
33:09And may I help you? He was always extremely polite. She said, yes, yes, yes, so and so
33:13here, I want to book in to see a vet, please. Certainly, madam. And this lady came in one
33:18day. And she looked at Donald. And he went up to him. They were looking very closely at
33:24each other. And she said, Mr. Sinclair, you're not looking very well. He said, you're not
33:30looking very well yourself. And then immediately went to get a card out and she went to sit
33:34down. But that was Donald. He didn't mean anything. It's just how he was.
33:40Yes, forefright with his view.
33:42That was Siegfried.
33:44And for you, what would you like your own legacy to be?
33:47I think my legacy will be summed up in the words that I had with Alf White as a young
33:54vet. If I've done my best for people, done my best for my clients, my patients, if I've
33:59done my best and people see that, then I'll be happy to shuffle off this earth knowing that
34:06I've done my best.
34:07Thank you, Peter Wright.
34:08That's all for today's Mrs. Yorkshire podcast. Don't forget to follow us on social media
34:17at Mrs. Yorkshire at Yorkshire Post. And of course, tune in next week for our next episode
34:24where again, we meet some of Yorkshire's most famous faces in their favourite places.