The midnight foaling in Herriot’s pyjamas

The midnight foaling in Herriot’s pyjamas is an overnight veterinary emergency that turns James Herriot’s exhaustion into a test of practical skill, then extends the ordeal into a comic public embarrassment. Called out for a mare after a difficult calving has already kept him working through the night, he reaches the farm in his pyjamas and macintosh, recognizes a breech presentation, and struggles to bring a live foal into the world. The delivery ends with the farmer’s gratitude; the journey home, however, includes a café stop at which Herriot’s unusual clothes and empty pockets make him the object of suspicion and jokes.

The second call of the night

The episode begins with a telephone summons that jolts Herriot awake. The caller, Mr. Dixon, says that his mare is foaling but making no progress, and suspects the foal is badly positioned. Herriot’s first response is physical: his stomach contracts, and he resents being dragged out again after a hard day and a previous night call. He had gone out at one o’clock to a difficult calving and returned close to three; when Dixon calls again, it is only 3:15. In his exhausted calculation, he has slept for mere minutes.

Getting dressed seems like an unnecessary obstacle. Herriot has already taken his clothes off and put them on again during the night, so he pulls his macintosh over his pyjamas, finds his Wellingtons outside the dispensary, and leaves. He expects to have to strip at the farm anyway. Driving through sleeping Darrowby, he sees shuttered shops and drawn curtains, and dwells on the punishing hours of country veterinary work. The practice seems to him almost like a living force testing how much strain he can bear. Yet self-pity gives way to a return of optimism: the farm is conveniently near the main road, its buildings have electric light, and, at twenty-four, he feels he is not yet so tired that he can be easily beaten.

A difficult breech delivery

At the farm, Herriot examines the mare and finds that the foal is presenting backwards. A breech delivery could be straightforward in a cow for a veterinarian who knew the work, but the mare presents a particular difficulty: the foal’s legs are exceptionally long, making it hard to bring them within reach. The mare trembles as he feels inside her, finding the tail, pelvic bones, and the body and hind legs beyond his reach.

The extraction takes half an hour of sweating effort. Using ropes and a blunt hook fixed to a flexible cane, Herriot works to bring the first leg around; the second comes more readily. Once the obstruction is cleared, the mare heaves and the foal shoots onto the straw, with Herriot sprawling over it and his arms around its body. He had felt no movement during the procedure and had begun to think it was dead. Then the small body jerks convulsively: the foal is alive, shaking its head and snorting out the placental fluid it inhaled during the delayed delivery. Its first unstable efforts to rise stay with Herriot as he leaves, turning the physical struggle into relief at the survival of a vulnerable creature.

Gratitude, and the joke about his clothes

After the delivery, the farmer holds out Herriot’s colourful jacket with mock formality while he dries himself. Herriot laughs and accepts the joke, saying he will dress properly next time. As he puts his belongings in the car, the farmer tosses a parcel onto the back seat: butter for him. The gift follows a more personal expression of thanks. The farmer explains that he had been thinking about the mare and had badly wanted a foal from her; Herriot’s intervention has secured the outcome he hoped for. As Herriot drives away, the farmer calls after him, comparing him to a Kentucky Minstrel.

The return journey carries a different mood from the drive out. The sun rises as a dark crimson ball above misted fields, and Herriot feels content, remembering the foal trying to get to its knees with its long legs still out of control. The detail that matters most to him is not the difficulty of the extraction but the discovery that the foal was alive. His fatigue remains, but the successful delivery has replaced his earlier despair with satisfaction.

The café aftermath

At 5:15, hungry and still far from his next meal, Herriot turns in among the lorries at a café and goes inside expecting to buy a sandwich. The room’s clatter gives way to silence: a lorry driver pauses with a loaded fork halfway to his mouth, while another stares at Herriot’s appearance. Bright red striped pyjamas and Wellingtons are an odd sight in the café, and his short macintosh leaves a length of pyjama leg visible above his boots. He buttons the coat, but cannot disguise the outfit.

The practical embarrassment is worse than the staring. Reaching inside his coat for money, Herriot finds only the pocketless flannelette beneath it: his trousers and his money are back in Darrowby. He tries to explain that he has been there before and asks whether the woman at the counter knows who he is; she does not, and she slips the sandwich out of sight. The café regulars turn his clothes into a running joke, speculating that the stripes and Wellingtons belong to an escaped prisoner. Herriot finally gives up, finishes his Bovril, and hurries outside. As he steps into the early sunshine, he hears one last remark about his boots. The successful night’s work has earned a farmer’s thanks, but it cannot spare him the indignity of being mistaken for a comic spectacle on the way home.