Literature-tourism is something I have enjoyed a great deal in my time here, but above all, I wanted to walk in the footsteps of James Herriot, a writer very close to my heart.

Herriot is the pen name of the country vet Alfred Wight who lived in North Yorkshire, writing about the animals he cured and the human beings who surrounded him. Herriot-land did not disappoint. (Those of you who remember the Great Betsy, Tacy, Tib fiasco know that there was potential for things to go wrong here.)

In the books, Herriot lives in Darrowby, which I discovered does not exist after frenzied google searches. However, I found that you can visit Alf Wight’s real home that has been converted into a museum (he died in 1995) and is located in the village of Thirsk, the inspiration for his fictional setting. I was determined to go up there, to see Herriot landmarks but also to see life outside of London.

Like all the best adventures, mine began at King’s Cross Station.

I spent my first afternoon in York, a picturesque and well-preserved medieval city. The foundations were Roman and you can still see remnants of the original Roman walls in a few spots. York comes complete with a fortress of old stone wall around the circumference, an ornate central cathedral, the skinny pedestrian-only roads that used to make up every city in England, and little stone churches every few feet. Given the fact York’s plague death rate was 1 in 3, I can see what drove the people to religion. They were also in the center of the War of Roses, a blood feud between the houses of York and Lancaster. It was pretty much like any other civil war, but it wins the prize for best name.

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On to Thirsk!

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Thirsk is a little market town an hour drive from York. The town itself looks fairly average, but it is located in a very scenic area of the country, between two national parks, North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales.

In Thirsk proper I had my first couch-surfing experience, which I am pleased to say was very positive. I stayed with a recent university grad named Alistair who had moved up to his native Yorkshire for a job.

It was wonderful because he had the whole weekend free so we explored a good part of Yorkshire together- from the James Herriot museum to the moors and the dales and nearby villages. I saw much more than I would have on my own and had good company the whole time. He was amused by my awe of a town that he views as simple and small.

Couch-surfing is meant to facilitate international exchanges and friendships and I think that is how it worked for us. I was the first Jew he had ever met and shared my opinions on American politics in the run-up to the elections. I got the pleasure of hearing him say something quintessentially British every few minutes. From discussing knitting patterns for a Christmas jumper over the phone with his mum, to consuming mass amounts of tea, extolling virtues of fresh air and commonly using the phrase peckish. But the best part was just the fun conversations and adventures.

For their American publishing the James Herriot books are titled: All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Wise and Wonderful, and The Lord Gd Made Them All.

If you have not read these books I highly recommend them. Each books is a compilation of entertaining short stories suited for all ages. They propel the reader through a range of emotions as the author vividly captures village life, the beauty of the dales, the hardships of early veterinary practice, and the funny characters he meets both animal and human. I first read the book as a child but reading them again now, I am amazed by how Wight captures moments emotions from the exciting to the sad to the purely mundane.

I remember reading James Herriot so long ago and dreaming of breathing in the rich Yorkshire air he describes as being the sweetest in the world. As a city child, I romanticized farm life and probably still do, but sights of sheep or ponies sends me over the moon.

The air was indeed very clean and sweet and seeing so much green was refreshing after so much time in the city.

Inside the James Herriot Museum you can see Skeldale house refurnished exactly the way it was when both James Herriot and Sigfried’s families were living there and it was an operational veterinary surgery.

You can walk into the garden where Sigfried discovered James Herriot asleep on the day he came to apply for the job. You can even answer a ringing phone call and attempt to decipher the thick accent of the brusk farmer on the other end. In the interactive games for children (definitely me and Alistair) you can test the steadiness of your surgical hand or put your hand up a plastic cows bum, an activity that occurred in the majority of the stories. Very accurate to the books. Warning: It was also the most expensive museum I have ever paid to get into. It was worth it in my case, but this part may not be for everyone.

I was lucky to be in England during the famous Guy Fawkes Day aka Bonfire Night. It celebrates the failure of a 1605 conspiracy to blow up the houses of parliament. Today the bit about Guy Fawkes is not mentioned much as people use it as a reason to host community festivals and celebrate outdoors once more before winter closes in. Above all, it is an excellent excuse to set off fireworks and the gov does not even try to ruin the fun with pesky rules and regulations so there really are fireworks just everywhere. The holiday was on Monday, but celebrations were all weekend long.

On Saturday night Thirsk had their bonfire and set off a fireworks show matched to a classical fuzzing out of a speaker system. We lit some sparklers as well and then retreated to the pubs to finished the night with Yorkshire ales and slow gin.

The only downside of the weekend is that my camera charger somehow fell out of my backpack while packing so of course the battery died right before we saw the most amazing sights. Even Alistair said the dales are not usually quite as beautiful as they were on the day we walked through them. The day was misty in a way that suggested the magical. The sun light could only come through hazily but it was not cold. There was an element of surprise as sometimes whole groves of trees or a castle emerge quite suddenly out of the mist. It blew off enough at times for us to see beautiful panoramas of the rolling green hills.

We sneaked into a ruined castle that was closed for the winter season and raced the hedge maze out back. The walked into a field and proceeded down a muddy path that led straight through pastures of sheep who chewed slowly and watched you walk by. The fields are lined by dry stone walls, which I learned a classic feature of this part of the country. The sheep folds were straight out of the Herriot books. So were the shaggy ponies and cows we passed and the metal gates between fields and the little brooks.

We made it through the farms to the town on the other side where we stopped in at a pub. Right inside the door was a plaque marking the rooms attached as one of the places Alf Wight and his wife stayed during their honeymoon. I knew from the books that they spent this time doing tuberculin tests so it was mind blowing to think that they had walked thruogh the very fields where I had just pointed out the 700th sheep to Alistair and nearly fell in the mud dozens of times.

So I have reached my goal of seeing the Yorkshire Dales, but now that I have had a taste I must go back. There is still a lot of park land to be explored and I did not catch the heather in bloom.

Here are a few photos I gleaned from the Internet: