Every Living Thing

This memoir follows James Herriot through his continuing work as a country veterinary surgeon in the Yorkshire Dales during the 1950s. Married to Helen and raising two children, Jimmy (ten) and Rosie (six), Herriot practiced from Skeldale House in the small town of Darrowby alongside his partner, Siegfried Farnon. Through dozens of interwoven episodes, the book traces the arc of a professional life shaped by difficult cases, colorful clients, family milestones, and the arrival of two very different young assistants.

The book opens with a harrowing morning call. Herriot treated a magnificent Shire horse for urticaria, a routine skin condition, injecting both a new antihistamine and an older preparation for extra assurance. The horse began trembling, then shuddering violently, and crashed to the cobblestones. Herriot believed he had killed the animal. Moments later, the horse rose and walked to his master, the spots nearly gone. The farmer praised the cure but called it a bit drastic. Shaken, Herriot pulled over on the road home, but as the sun broke through the clouds and primroses appeared on the bank, his gratitude for the life of a Yorkshire vet reasserted itself. This pattern of crisis, self-doubt, and renewed wonder recurs throughout the book.

A series of memorable cases follows. Geoffrey Hatfield, a confectioner whose flamboyant selling style made his tiny shop the busiest in Darrowby, watched helplessly as his beloved tabby cat, Alfred, wasted away from a mysterious illness. Herriot eventually performed exploratory surgery and discovered a large hair-ball lodged in the stomach, invisible on X-rays. Alfred's recovery restored both cat and owner to their former vitality. The wealthy and eccentric Mrs. Pumphrey, whose pampered Pekingese, Tricki Woo, allegedly won bets on greyhound racing, offered Herriot a Savile Row suit from her late husband's wardrobe. The suit was comically oversized, but once altered by the village tailor, it arrived just in time for Herriot's appearance before the Milk Committee. There, he argued that hill farmer Ted Newcombe deserved a Tuberculin Tested licence, a certification for disease-free herds that would raise Ted's milk price and likely save his struggling farm. Nearly suffocating in the overheated meeting room, Herriot delivered an impassioned speech, and the licence was unanimously granted.

Herriot also recounts his recurring bouts of brucellosis, an occupational disease contracted from years of working inside infected cattle, whose fevers left him delirious. During one attack, he confronted his most imperious client, Mrs. Featherstone, laughing at her imaginary complaints about her healthy poodle and cataloguing every unfounded worry she had ever brought him. Dreading her response, he was astonished when she thanked him, saying he had helped her see the funny side of her own silliness.

A long-running professional conflict with Hugo Mottram, a neighboring veterinary surgeon, escalated through a series of misunderstandings over clients seeking second opinions, culminating in Mottram publicly calling Herriot dishonest. The feud ended only when Mottram's beloved horse fell gravely ill while Mottram was on holiday. Herriot and Siegfried spent an entire night treating the animal, which recovered fully. Weeks later, Mottram appeared at Skeldale House with a crate of champagne and a painfully sincere apology, marking the beginning of a lasting friendship.

Herriot's children shared his devotion to animals. Jimmy assisted at night calvings and caught an early case of mastitis, an udder infection, that his father initially missed. Rosie opened gates on farm visits and worried about how her father would manage when she started school. Herriot admits he discouraged Rosie from veterinary medicine because of the physically punishing nature of 1950s large-animal practice, steering her toward human medicine instead. She became a happy doctor, but he still wonders whether he was right.

The arrival of the practice's first official assistant, John Crooks, marked a turning point. Young and eager, John proved himself by handling a tyrannical retired military officer with calm authority and winning over even the most difficult clients. He married Heather, eventually left to establish his own practice in Beverley, and rose through the profession until, in 1983, he was elected President of the British Veterinary Association. He asked Herriot to make the induction speech, an invitation that brought the story full circle.

Running through many chapters is Herriot's long campaign to move his family out of Skeldale House, which was beautiful but freezing cold and exhausting for Helen to maintain. Two attempts to buy houses at auction failed spectacularly. Herriot and Helen finally commissioned young architects to build a custom house whose primary design requirement, after years of carrying food through fifty-yard passages, was a hatch between kitchen and dining room. On the night before the roof was to go up, a gale blew down the unsupported gable end. The house was rebuilt and became a happy home, first at Rowan Garth and eventually at High Field House in the tiny hamlet of Hannerly, where badgers crossed the path on nocturnal walks and silence was broken only by the murmur of the beck, a stream.

The book's second half is dominated by Calum Buchanan, the practice's next assistant, who stepped off the train with a dog and a badger named Marilyn draped over his shoulder. Calum's veterinary skill was formidable: On his very first call, he performed a flawless Caesarean section on a heifer. He demonstrated an uncanny rapport with all animals. He also brought chaos. A second badger arrived, then two Dobermann pinschers, then fox cubs, an owl, a monkey, and more. Calum challenged Herriot's habit of sending routine surgeries to a specialist, arguing that small-animal work was the future of country practice. He married Dierdre, a kindred spirit who shared his passion for wildlife, once standing in for him on a deer-watching vigil when he was called to a case. When Calum announced he was leaving for Nova Scotia, Herriot felt the loss deeply. Letters arrived describing a growing practice and six children raised to love the outdoors. Twenty years later, Calum moved to Papua New Guinea, where he introduced livestock to communities in the southern highlands.

Among the book's most affecting stories are those of elderly people and their animals. Old Dick Fawcett, a quiet widower dying of cancer, brought in his cat, Frisk, who kept falling unconscious for no apparent reason. Herriot eventually realized that Frisk had been licking leftover narcotic pain medication from a saucer by Dick's bedside. Dick died shortly afterward, his final whispered words calling for his cat. Molly Minican, a neighbor, battled a mysterious recurring illness in her dog, Robbie, for two years. Each time steroids brought recovery, but the episodes grew more severe, and Robbie was finally put to sleep, the mystery unsolved. Molly herself died soon after. On a particularly discouraging day, Helen presented Herriot with a framed piece of cardboard from Molly's bedroom wall bearing photographs of a famous surgeon, John Wayne, and Herriot, labeled as her three favorite men.

The memoir closes with the story of Olly and Ginny, two feral kittens abandoned at the Herriots' home in Hannerly. Despite years of patient feeding, neither cat would enter the house, and both fled at the sight of Herriot, whom they associated with being netted and caged. After many months of quietly offering food and extending a hand, Herriot finally touched Olly's cheek. The next morning, Olly was found rigid on the grass, likely the victim of a stroke or cerebral hemorrhage, and died despite treatment. Ginny, bereft and searching for her companion, gradually allowed Herriot to approach over many more months. The book ends with Ginny pressing her nose against his, gazing into his eyes. Helen catches him in this posture and teases him. Herriot calls it one of his greatest triumphs.