1930s

The 1930s are the working present of James Herriot’s early veterinary life: a period when rural practice is shadowed by agricultural hardship and technological change, yet ordered by the recurring demands of weather, livestock, and season. Its defining contrast is between a countryside that can seem idyllic in spring and the strenuous, uncertain labor that sustains it.

Economic and Rural Setting

In 1937, newly qualified veterinary surgeons faced bleak prospects. Agriculture had been depressed after a decade of government neglect, and the draught horse—the profession’s former mainstay—was disappearing. A handful of advertised vacancies attracted scores of applicants, making James Herriot’s invitation to interview in Darrowby feel like a lifeline amid the risk of unemployment or work far from veterinary practice.

The countryside itself overturns his expectations. As the bus climbs toward the Pennines, high grassy hills and broad valleys emerge from what he had imagined as a dull county. Rivers wind among trees; grey-stone farmhouses sit among cultivated fields, and dry-stone walls trace the hillsides through the heather. This landscape is not merely a pastoral backdrop: its farms, animals, and distances define the conditions of the work.

Seasonal Work and Rural Time

Veterinary life follows a sharply changing annual cycle. After winter, cattle that have spent months confined in byres need green grass and sunshine, while their calves are vulnerable to disease. These continuing problems coincide with the spring rush of lambing. Sheep may occupy little of the practitioners’ attention for most of the year, then abruptly dominate it for two months: pregnancy toxaemia and prolapses give way to concentrated lambings, calcium deficiencies, severe mastitis, and diseases affecting the lambs. By the end of May, the flood of sheep work has receded and they return, in the narrative’s image, to being woolly shapes on the hills.

The changing season is registered through both work and landscape. In late March, snow still lies behind the walls and the grass remains winter-yellowed, yet sunshine, larks, and wind in the pines signal a release from the cold. April brings primroses and the start of lambing; by May and early June, the air has softened, fields glitter in the morning light, and wild flowers speckle the pastures. At Skeldale House, wistaria pushes through open windows and fills the rooms with its fragrance. The beauty is real, but it accompanies a period of intensified animal care rather than replacing it.

Horses and a Changing Countryside

The 1930s are also a hinge between older and newer forms of farm life. Tractors have already sounded a warning to the horse, and stables in more arable areas are partly empty, but enough horses remain to make May and June an uncomfortable time for the veterinarian. Foaling brings its own work: attending mares, docking foals’ tails, and treating newborn illnesses such as joint ill and retained meconium. As the weather warms, farmers turn to castrating year-old colts. The ordinary sight of a cart mare with her foal belongs to this still horse-dependent countryside, even as the narrator’s later perspective recognizes it as increasingly rare.

Weather, Routine, and the Measure of Time

The seasons shape experience beyond the calendar of animal cases. On ordinary mornings, James Herriot passes from the smell of ether and carbolic through the high-walled garden toward the yard and the cars. Though urgent cases may be waiting, he lingers among the flowers, ivy, and wistaria, experiencing the garden as a daily renewal after five years in the city. This repeated passage makes rural time feel both familiar and newly discovered.

Winter restores the harsher counterpoint. In James Herriot’s second winter in Darrowby, snow transforms the high country within hours, filling roads and smoothing away familiar landmarks. Herne Fell looms above the town; residents dig paths to their gates and clear drifts from their doors, knowing they may have to do it again the next day. Veterinary work continues, but travel becomes labor in itself: the practitioners follow a council plough when possible, drive as far as they can, and walk the remaining distance. Across the year, the countryside offers beauty and belonging without ever ceasing to impose practical demands.