Thirsk is a small town in Yorkshire. Its most famous inhabitant is probably James Herriot, a veterinary surgeon who wrote a series of books that were turned in TV series and movies. His real name was Alf Wight, but vets were not allowed to advertise and so he took the name of a soccer goalkeeper when he came to writing his books that were popular all over the world.
The building where he lived and operated his business is now a museum. The shop and ticket desk are in the building to the right. Once you have paid you enter through his front door that takes you into the hall.
Much of the house has been set up as it would have been in the time the books were set. Alf/James worked with brothers Donald and Brian Sinclair who were called Siegfried and Tristan in the books. Alf eventually retired after around 50 years of working with animals as he kept it up even after the books were successful.
The job of a vet will have changed a lot over the years. These days they will have much more equipment. When Alf started it was mostly about caring for farm animals, but now pets will be a bigger part.
In the garden is a statue of Alf. He would write his books on this typewriter in front of the television after work.
There is a barn at the end of the garden where you can watch a short film about Alf featuring Christopher Timothy who portrayed James in the original TV series. You will hear the theme tune for that in the house where they have lots of publicity material for the show and the movies.
The show Heartbeat was also set in that area and there is an exhibit about that too.
Next there is a mock-up with a set from the show. It was interesting for me to see the cameras and recording equipment.
Upstairs there is a museum of veterinary equipment. Apparently it is one of the largest of its type. Some items had been loaned to the recent re-make of the TV show. We really enjoyed the museum having watched the TV show when we were young.
We stayed in an AirBnB just up the road from the museum. We did explore the town a little. There is a market square surrounded by a good variety of shops that has most of what you could need. Most of the buildings in the centre are quite old. On our first evening we saw a lady in a high-viz jacked that said Duck Warden. Apparently some ducks come up from the river in the evening and hang around the square until morning. Someone will be there to keep an eye on them. We saw the ducks on the river during the day.
We used Thirsk as a centre for exploring the area. I will post soon about other places we visited.
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