All Creatures Great And Small

"They didn't say anything about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back.
I lay face down on the cobbled floor in a pool of nameless muck, my arm deep inside the straining cow, my feet scrabbling for a toe hold between the stones. I was stripped to the waist and the snow mingled with the dirt and the dried blood on my body. I could see nothing outside the circle of flickering light thrown by the smoky oil lamp which the farmer held over me."
James Herriot, If Only They Could Talk

I don't think All Creatures Great And Small is on television at the moment. Possibly one of the nostalgia fests like Yesterday occasionally broadcasts an episode. But there are clips on YouTube. And I can tell you that every series of it is available on DVD from all good online retailers and my goodness me, some of those hard-of-hearing subtitles are great. Apart from one terrible mishear in a barn that was spotted too late to correct. (Not mine.)

So yes, the last time I saw it was at work, about 12 years ago, when the DVD release was being subtitled by the European Captioning Institute. Extraordinary how dated television from the 1980s seemed 20 years on. The sound is muffled, camera shot changes are less frequent and the picture seems grainy and muted in colour. There's an obvious difference in quality between the video used to record in studios and the traditional film used outside on location. Plots are slow to develop, numerous episodes make up a series and nothing too dramatic ever happens.

But with All Creatures all can be forgiven, for there is also the classical but catchy theme tune, the Wagnerian names, Peter Davison's knitted tank tops, Robert Hardy pontificating, a change of wife into the lovely Lynda Bellingham (RIP), the gruff farmers, fussy pooch Tricky Woo and those eternal shots of Christopher Timothy with his arm up a cow's birthing canal. The glorious Yorkshire Dales are always wet or covered in snow, and cars are always breaking down at inopportune moments.

So if it's not currently on television, why am I writing about it? Because of the fabulous World Of James Herriot Museum in Thirsk. Which is not just the best museum about James Herriot in the world, it's possibly one of the best museums in the world. At least if you have a four year old child. We went for the first time in January and had the most marvellous afternoon imaginable at a time when you have the post-Christmas blues, the weather is too cold to be outdoors, most stately homes are closed, and you wish you could afford to go and see the sun in Tenerife.

The first part of the museum is the restored house and vet's surgery, with original features and furniture and fixtures and fittings. There is a children's trail, where you spot black animals with letters on to make a name at the end. No prizes for guessing whose name it might be. (But you might get a badge.)

James Herriot's real name was Alf Wight, and he moved to live and work as a vet at 23 Kirkgate in Thirsk in 1940. Apart from a spell in the RAF during the war, Wight remained working in Thirsk for the rest of his life. I should at this point tell you a whole lot more about him, but unfortunately my knowledge is limited to what I read in three of his books 30 years ago and saw on the television series, both of which have serious amounts of artistic licence and aren't meant to be autobiographical. This doesn't mean that the museum doesn't tell you LOTS about him. It's just that I didn't get much of a chance to read the information, being in the company of a child who passes through rooms that don't concern her like a whirlwind. I did manage to pick up that Alf Wight was born in Sunderland but his family moved to Glasgow shortly afterwards, and that James (Jim) Herriot is named after a Scottish goalkeeper. Wight started writing his books after he had been talking about doing so for years and his wife bet that he would never get round to it. Siegfried and Tristan Farnon are based on the owner of the practice Donald Sinclair and his younger brother Brian. The jury is apparently still out as to who was the more eccentric, Donald Sinclair or Herriot's characterisation of him as Siegfried. Thirsk is known as Darrowby in the books, and 23 Kirkgate as Skeldale House. You won't recognise much of Darrowby in Thirsk from the television series because most of the outside location scenes were filmed in Wensleydale.

In the house, you see Wight's sitting/ waiting room (complete with a barking Tricky Woo), another lounge with children's toys in it, and the tiny cubby hole of an animal surgery. Most of his veterinary work was done out on farms or race courses - small animal work was new in his day as pets were still a luxury item.

For added historical interest, the house still has a WW2 air-raid shelter in the cellar, which you can go down to see provided you have a degree in operating children's stair gates.

You then continue on to a kitchen rammed full of tins, utensils and furniture from days gone by. This leads out to a room containing a case of pottery animal characters from Herriot's lesser known children's books and memorabilia from the All Creatures Great And Small television series, including a piano score for the theme tune and a knitting pattern for that Peter Davison tank top.

The cramped surgery

The kitchen

That Tristan Farnon knitting pattern

Outside in the garden is a newly unveiled statue of Alf Wight and a pen of chickens. Inside an old stable is an account of Alf Wight's life story, as both a wall display and a film. There are copies of his books translated into numerous languages, and a lot of farm equipment and hay.

Then it gets slightly surreal. Through a door out of the garden is a replica of a TV studio. The sets used for the indoor scenes of All Creatures Great And Small at Pebble Mill in Birmingham have been transported to Thirsk, complete with mixing board, cameras, overhead lights, monitors, hats on the hatstand and the theme tune on a continuous loop. A script has been left on the dining room table for you to act out, should you feel so inclined. There is a phone that rings and you can pick it up say that famous number "Darrowby 385" to a recording of a ranting Yorkshire farmer desperate for Mr Herriot's help. There is also one of the beautiful vintage cars that was always breaking down.

The sitting room set

This is a children's paradise in itself, but then you go upstairs to the actual children's room, where there are numerous activities and games to teach kids about the life of a vet. This includes things like matching the X-ray to the animal, a version of Operation, a magnetic sheep dog trial, a giant version of snakes and ladders, a game about administering the right dose of pills, a spot the difference between a vet and a doctor's bag activity, and a game to see how many animals you can treat in a minute, as well as various quizzes and animal brass rubbings. 

How many animals can you treat in a minute?

In the next room, there is a rather gruesome museum of the history of veterinary science. However bad you think human medical treatment has been in bygone eras, animals had it far worse. Before the discovery of antibiotics, a vet's ability to save animals was fairly limited and treatment that wasn't euthanasia mostly relied on vaccination and assistance with breeding and birthing. Or preventing breeding and birthing with tools such as those below, used to castrate bulls.

Ouch

And as if the kids haven't had enough fun already, then there is a room with a train set in. There are buttons so children can work the trains themselves. Grand Central have given the museum a model of their train James Herriot, which serves his birthplace of Sunderland. And if any of this gets boring, overlooking the train set is a giant set of horse's teeth that need tending to.

But still there's more! A crafts room, with little farm sets, animal masks, and cosy cushions to read books about cats on. There are also further items from the house that there wasn't room to display downstairs. I found myself struggling to explain the point of a typewriter that didn't have a screen to my daughter. "It just made your work look a bit tidier."

And then as the finishing touch, you can put your own arm up a cow's birthing canal.

So if you are in Yorkshire with a young child, head up to Thirsk. I would like to think that you won't be disappointed. Allow at least two hours for your visit to the museum. And before you go, make sure you check the World Of James Herriot's blog for special offers. We got two adult tickets for the price of one in January. It's quite expensive to visit otherwise (£8.50 per adult, although that's still cheaper than many other places), but worth it. Under fives are free. You can park on the street outside the museum (but will need to borrow a disc from the ticket office) or there is a pay and display car park nearby at Marage. Or you can park for free in the Market Square on Sundays - on other days you have to pay and there is a two-hour maximum stay which may not be enough time. If you require refreshments afterwards, our daughter would recommend the jam sandwiches at Olivia's in the Market Square.

A Taste Of Britain: York and North Yorkshire

Janet Street Porter and Brian Turner are travelling the length of Britain in praise of local produce and in search of a good eat or three. On Sunday lunchtime, they were in York and North Yorkshire. Home turf for me, and home turf for the pair of them - Janet lives in Nidderdale, and Brian is Yorkshire born and bred (and rather a Yorkshire stereotype). I can't imagine this pair of strong personalities getting on, but they seem amiable enough on camera.

They begin in York on a beautiful spring day. There is no better light in which to see our city. The banks of the walls aflame with daffodils, the blossom bursting in the Museum Gardens, and the river teeming with life. It's when we wake up from our long winter sleep and remember just how good it is to be here.

Spring in the Museum Gardens

City walls

Looking towards the site of Star Inn The City

Their only restaurant stop in York is Star Inn The City, which opened in the old pumping station by Lendal Bridge a couple of years ago. It's a sister restaurant to Andrew Pern's Star Inn at Harome, which has been known to possess a star of the Michelin variety from time to time. Though the only time we went there, many years ago now, we weren't quite sure why - it was the sort of place where the waiting staff forgot to bring you a wine list, the Yorkshire portions were enormous and sickly, and the overuse of edible flowers and black pudding did nothing but give me a migraine.

Nonetheless, we have been to Star Inn The City twice - once for my husband's 40th birthday breakfast, and once for dinner, when he changed jobs and was given a Star gift voucher as a leaving present. I don't think there's much you can say about Star Inn The City that Jay Rayner hasn't already but suffice to say, it's a very mixed bag. And it makes you cross. Because the prices are as high as the sky, but the food quality is - well, at best inconsistent, at worst inedible. When you have a young child, you don't get to go out much, so when you do get a baby-sitter and are going somewhere charging "special treat only" prices, you want the dogs bollocks and the cats pyjamas of an experience. And this you do not get. Instead you arrive and are told your table is not ready, but look, there's a nice bar over there charging extortionate rates for drinks you do not want to get you in the (bad) mood which will sour the rest of the evening. And then - when you are finally allowed into the main restaurant - there's the bread in the Yorkshire flat cap thing. And the stupid Yorkshire puns ("Ee-by-gum Madam!", "salad o't day"), and the exaggerated statements of food provenance ("Beverley reared duck breast"). Unlike Jay Rayner, I would have forgiven all that if they had just served me an amazing plate of grub for my money. But they didn't. The beetroot and goats' cheese starter was so-so, the Scarborough woof made me gag, and the gooseberry and elderflower rice pudding should have been avoided if only because the waitress had recommended it, which is usually a sure-fire sign that the chefs are trying to shift a job lot out the kitchen.

To be fair, the seafood dish that Andrew Pern cooks with Brian Turner does look delicious, and a far cry from anything we were served that overpriced night. Pern acknowledges that he does "cheffy" thing like piping puree so that he can put the prices up. Turner admires Pern's quirky sides. I guess humour is a very personal thing.

The Star Inn The City has a gorgeous riverside setting, and the dining room is undeniably lovely. York certainly needed something where it sits - it replaced the park toilets. But it's a waste of a fantastic opportunity. However, our daughter - developing expensive tastes at far too young an age - asked to go there for breakfast on her birthday last year, "just like Daddy did". We of course said no and served her her usual bowl of Cheerios. There are much better places to go in York (Melton's, Walmgate Ale House, Oxo's, The Whippet) that do what The Star is doing, with or without the quirks, that won't break the bank in the form of armed robbery, though will inevitably make a bit of a dent in your account.

Daughter with expensive tastes at Star Inn The City, December 2013

Mummy (taken by daughter) at Star Inn The City, December 2013

Then Janet and Brian move up towards Thirsk. They stand atop Sutton Bank, scene of many a caravan breakdown and my husband's first (and only) gliding lesson, when he spiralled above the famous White Horse that you can see for miles across the Vale of York. Janet then goes off to look at Mouseman furniture, which is loved the world over. My grandmother owns a Mouseman stool and a fruit bowl, and I suspect this will lead to inheritance fights in future years if she hasn't secured their future in her will. Brian heads off to a farm to look at pigs so cute that they would turn anyone vegetarian. Though a particularly friendly and gorgeous one plonks himself on Brian's foot and it seems to me that Brian is fighting a slight instinct to kick it right back off again.

Husband in glider taking off from the top of Sutton Bank, summer 2010

Janet and Brian convene at Ampleforth Abbey to consume cider and al fresco barbecued pork, which is - thankfully - pork rolled with apples and sage, and not barbecue sauce. If you haven't tried Ampleforth Abbey cider, do. It blows itself out of the bottle in a very excited fashion and then proceeds to blow your mind, slipping down like sweet fresh-pressed juice, but with disastrous consequences for your functioning. I do have to agree with Brian's question on the matter of monks brewing alcohol, "What's all that about, then?" As usual, the answer boils down to money.

I am worried the monks don't get enough to eat, as their chief cleans his plate at alarming speed. Andrew Pern says as he pokes his food, "Mm, you can really taste those herbs coming through" in a way which implies that Brian has choked his plate with sage. But I bet Brian hasn't charged Andrew what Andrew would charge us good folk of York to eat something similar.