Herriot: A Vet's Life

By W. R. Mitchell

Includes FREE bookplate signed by WR Mitchell, dedicated to the name of your choice. (What is this?)

Bill Mitchell was recently voted the Yorkshire Dales National Park's greatest living cultural icon in a poll to mark the 60th anniversary of each UK National Park. In the same poll, Alf Wight - much better known as James Herriot, the celebrated vet - won the same accolade in a second category as an icon who had died but was still revered.

This book sees the two reunited, with Bill Mitchell as the author and Alf as the main character. Alf's son Jim followed in his footsteps to become a vet and often accompanied Alf on his rounds. Both applied their veterinary skills to ailing farmstock and household pets in the Pennine dales and across the North York Moors.

Bill Mitchell gathered much of his information from interviews with father and son. In compiling this fully illustrated book, Bill could not resist adding Herriot-like tales of Dales characters he met as a long-time editor of The Dalesman, in a colourful period overlapping that known to Alf.

PUBLICATION SEPTEMBER 2010

"For anyone who enjoyed the original James Herriot books, (nine in all), the various TV series and films, this generously illustrated hardback book will give much pleasure, but also help to further enormous respect for the people of the Dales, with their stoical endurance, wit, depth of religious feeling and tremendous personalities."
Yorkshire Dales Review, Winter 2011

"Mr Mitchell offers an up close and personal account of Alf Wight, who wrote nine James Herriot books that were made into a TV series (with Christopher Timothy) and two feature films"
Northern Echo, Thursday 16th September.
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"It is one Yorkshire icon writing a gentle memoir about another, a man who he once interviewed. There are plenty of warm anecdotes here... Herriot: A Vet’s Life, isn’t just about Herriot himself....There are plenty of stories of Bill’s own meetings with the farmers and characters of Yorkshire in here too...The book is as much a tribute to those people as it is to the vet who brought their stories so vividly and gloriously alive on the page."
York Evening Press, Saturday 18th September.
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Yorkshire Post Magazine – article about the book appeared Sat 6th September.
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