Nostalgic for James Herriot

A recent geocaching visit to a farm that still uses heavy horses left me feeling nostalgic for the James Herriot stories. As our paperbacks are now too fragile to read in bed, I decided to download them to my kindle. And what a joy they’ve proved to be during wakeful hours in the middle of the night. The stories are charming; equally moving and entertaining and portray a genuine picture of rural life in the middle of the 20th century when life was slower, treatment by antibiotics was a “miracle” of the future and Yorkshire pockets were still shallow! . 

The Last Horsemen

Yesterday the sound of curlews and skylarks filled the air as I looked for a geocache on a farm that still uses heavy horses. Seeing the hand-ploughed field, I was reminded that years ago, we visited friends who used to live nearby. Reared on James Herriot and the delightful story of two elderly carthorses that enjoyed a long and happy retirement, I asked the farmer what happened to his horses when they were too old to work.  I was shocked and crushed on hearing that they ended up on a French dinner plate or a in a dog food tin!