The Real James Herriot Read Online Free PDF

doubt enjoyed Yoker’s better times.
    His parents were dedicated workers who ensured that the family was always well catered for. Pop held down a good job as a ship plater in the big Yarrow’s shipyard which was close to the family home, and he supplemented his earnings by playing the piano in the local cinemas. He was the leader of an orchestra which provided the sound tracks for silent films as well as music for the intervals between the shows.
    Pop took great pride in his musical ability. In the evenings, when most of his workmates were having a drink in the bars of Yoker, Pop would be found seated in front of the beloved grand piano he had brought with him from Sunderland. He would practise happily for hours. I can clearly recall my grandfather seated in front of his cherishedpiano, eyes closed and with a look of sheer pleasure on his face as his hands danced over the keys. He had lost the forefinger of his right hand when he was a young man but this did not seem to hinder his ability. He used to compose his own music and, in his later years, accompanied a group known as the ‘Glenafton Singers’ who performed at many concerts in Glasgow. Pop was a truly gifted musician whose enthusiasm spread to his son ensuring that he, too, would discover that the love of music was one of life’s greatest joys.
    Hannah Wight was as musical as Pop. She and her husband were members of the Glasgow Society of Musicians, performing regularly at concerts in the city. He was the accompanist on the piano while she sang in the choir as a contralto under her maiden name, calling herself ‘Miss Anna Bell’. The extra money they earned while performing with this professional organisation must have been a welcome addition to the family budget.
    The mid 1920s was a particularly worrying period and parts of Glasgow were grim places to be at the time of the General Strike in 1926. Soldiers were on the streets to maintain law and order, and the windows of the buses and trams were covered in steel netting to protect them from flying missiles hurled by desperate and rebellious mobs. Pop, along with thousands of workers, was made redundant from the shipyards. As with so many others, he had to sway in the winds of depression sweeping the city as work became almost impossible to get. However, he managed to survive through sheer determination and adaptability by turning his hand to other means of earning a living – working first as a joiner and later, when Alf was a teenager, by opening a fish and chip shop. He also had the advantage of having a very resolute and resourceful wife.
    Around 1928, Pop’s income from playing in the cinemas was ruthlessly cut with the advent of sound tracks which accompanied the films, but Hannah was already earning a living in her own right. Musical ability was not the only talent she possessed; she was adept at making clothes. In the mid 1920s, she set aside one of the rooms of the family home to establish a thriving dressmaking business that she would keep going for almost thirty years. She became so busy that, in the early 1930s, she employed not only several seamstresses but a maid by the name of Sadie. Hannah developed a clientele of many wealthy and influential ladies – something that would be a vital contribution to the family finances.
    With two parents who ensured that there was always some money coming into the home, young Alf Wight never knew real hardship. His parents, admittedly, were under financial pressure at times, especially when Alf’s education had to be financed, but they survived the years of depression in the city far better than most. Indeed, at that time, there would be few houses in the streets of Yoker that could number a maid and a grand piano among its occupants. Although there were to be times when the spectre of poverty stared Alf in the face, it was not during his childhood days on the streets of Glasgow.
    Shortly before he was five years old, Alf Wight began his education at Yoker