An extraordinary personality he may have been, but Alf enjoyed every moment of his company. As well as sharing a similar sense of humour, the two men enjoyed other common interests. They spent many evenings escorting young ladies to the cinema or to dances, and they both loved the atmosphere of a friendly public house where numerous pints of beer would be consumed.

It was when in the company of the foaming brew that Brian really came into his own. Brian remained a dedicated beer drinker until the final years of his life and, for a smallish man, it was amazing how much he could put away. In all the years Alf knew him, he rarely seemed the worse for wear following a night at his favourite pastime. As a beer drinker, even as a young man when he and Alf were enjoying their nights of alcoholic revelry, he had the assurance born of years of practice.

Both Alf and Brian had very fertile imaginations which they put to full use, roaring with laughter as they fantasised about Thirsk and the surrounding area. The town has a small, meandering waterway, the Codbeck, running through it, and the two young men would imagine it as a great river, with Thirsk, a thriving seaport, at its mouth. The opening of one of Brian’s letters began, ‘And as the fully-rigged sailing ship Cryptorchidsailed into the harbour …’ When recalling the story, Alf could get no further than that first line. The high land at the top of Sutton Bank, a part of the practice that Brian regarded as ‘The Lost World’, was another focus for their imagination. The two men dreamed up images of swaying columns of vets and sundry other people trekking across the barren landscape on their way to a dinosaur in distress. A letter written by Alf to Brian, when Brian was in the Army Veterinary Corps in India in August 1944, reveals how much he missed his company, as well as referring to the fantasies the two men shared together:

How now, old China! I hereby take up my pen to write to you which is more than you did when I was languishing in the R.A.F. but, as you see, I am still the sweet natured and forgiving youth you knew of old!

The old town is much as usual, but I confess life is not the merrier for your absence. Hancock, the new ‘horse leech’, acquitted himself well on his first visit to Cold Kirby. He was called to a crop-bound pteredactyl and severe downfall of the udder in a dinosaur. Some of the natives with blow pipes peppered him rather severely on his journey but he won through, left his gross of U.C.M.s, and returned with great credit.

We had an excellent Gymkhana more recently in aid of the Red Cross and some of the results of the contests were very interesting. Alan and ‘Leedle Jas’ [Brian’s pseudonym for me] finished first in the three-legged race for teething infants while in the married man’s egg and spoon race, Donald carried a magnificent egg and won a popular victory. Myra Hugill was a game second in the septaguanarians’ hundred yards dash and the gents’ bicycle and sack of potatoes trundle was, of course, a gift for lim Barley.

Here we must end, old comrade. Try to send a line south of the border down Sowerby way.

Yours aye,

Alf.

Brian certainly found something to laugh about every day but there was one occasion that stands out above all the others – one that reduced the young man to a helpless, weeping shell. It was the day that Donald’s dogs chased the local dustbin men out of the old garden at 23 Kirkgate. Alf recounted this incident to his family many times and, in fact, wrote it down, but before James Herriot was ‘born’, and the story was never published. The two brothers in the story were called not Siegfried and Tristan, but Edward and Henry.

On another peaceful August afternoon, Henry and I were sitting in the lounge waiting for the phone to ring. The french windows were open and, outside, the lawns and rockery and flowers slept in the sunshine. At our feet lay the dogs, draped over each other and breathing heavily. Then, we noticed the dustbin men coming through the little door at the far end of the garden.

The dustbin men had always fascinated Henry and me. There was one very tall, thin, lugubrious one, a very small, sad looking one and a fat one who always wore a black beret pulled down over his ears. We never saw any of them smile and they never seemed to speak to each other.

But the most striking thing about them was the slow pace at which they moved. The first time we saw them, we decided that one or all of them must be ill, so snail-like was their progression down the garden path. The tall and the short one used to appear first at the top of the garden. The fat one always walked behind. They would trail with incredible slowness down the path, heads down, unspeaking. They would disappear into the little yard where the bins were and reappear after an interval with the tall and the short one carrying a bin between them, dragging it listlessly along at arm’s length. Behind would be the fat one, carrying a box or some other small article of loose rubbish. The sorrowful procession would then shuffle painfully, foot by foot, up the path until it disappeared through the far door. After a minute or two, they would reappear, deployed in the same order and carrying the empty bin. Then they would start their weary journey back to the yard, dragging languid feet, their eyes fixed to the ground in hopeless resignation. When they gained the yard, they would repeat the process with another bin.

The garden path is a long one, all of eighty yards and dead straight. The high wall borders it on one side, and on the other lie the lawns, two tall apple trees and the vegetable garden. It always took a long time for the dustbin men to walk the full length of it and I suppose this may have had something to do with their disconsolate appearance.

On this hot afternoon, they seemed to be going even more slowly than usual and Henry and I watched, spellbound, as they laboriously made their way towards us. They had travelled about three quarters of the way and were just about to turn into the yard when the lurcher, Joe, spotted them. Some small noise had awakened him and he lifted a sleepy head, but at the sight of the dustbin men, his aspect changed suddenly. His neck stiffened and his head reared up, alert and watchful. The hairs along his back began to rise and a deep growl rumbled in his throat. The trailing, shuffling group seemed to hold a strange menace for Joe. Without taking his eyes away from them he rose slowly to his feet, and the other dogs, who were augmented by a waddling little Scottie and a large, long-haired animal of doubtful parentage, stirred into wakefulness.

Everything happened rapidly. Joe walked to the open french window with a stiff gait, every hair on his back and neck erect and bristling. His lips flickered back from his teeth and with a tremendous baying howl, he hurtled out onto the lawn, closely followed by the other five dogs in a solid mass. I can only imagine how those poor men must have felt when, out of nowhere, in the sunlit peace of the old garden, they suddenly saw this screaming horde bearing down on them. I must say this: they showed not the slightest sign of hesitation or indecision at this critical moment. In less than one second they had dropped the empty bin and were legging it back up the path like Olympic sprinters.

This electrifying transformation seemed to paralyse our faculties and we stared, open mouthed, at the scene. The tall, thin man got off to the best start and went away with his arms working like pistons. It was soon apparent, though, that his energy was being largely dissipated by faulty leg action. He had very long legs and he ran in an extraordinary high-stepping manner, his knees seeming to reach his chin. The little man had a whirlwind style, throwing his arms across his body and tossing his head about and taking tiny, rapid steps which made his legs look like a flickering blur. The real stylist of the three was the fat man. He set off with a beautiful, slightly rolling lope, his body straight and his arms moving in the classical manner. His pace over the first twenty yards was a revelation but he was obviously lacking in stamina and, his action becoming laboured, he began to fall behind. He showed remarkable resource here because, looking back and seeing the baying pack almost on his heels, he swung himself effortlessly into the branches of one of the apple trees.