Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
CREATURE COMFORTS
His adventures in Herriot country have been a huge hit ontv, now Yorkshire Vet Julian Norton shares his latest touching tales treating all manner of creatures in this first extract from his new book...
Tense, touching, funny – Yorkshire Vet Julian Norton shares his latest adventures in Herriot country in our first extract from his new book
When vet Julian Norton joined Alf Wight’s old practice in the Yorkshire Dales, he had a big pair of wellies to fill. Alf wrote the James Herriot books, which have found a new audience with Channel 5’s All Creatures Great And Small. Julian’s adventures have also been shared on the C5 reality series The Yorkshire Vet, and now his latest book tells a fresh set of stories – including a fretful first foaling...
Happy animals are all alike. A Cocker Spaniel will wag his tail as he dashes about on his morning walk. The cows in the next field are ruminating placidly as they digest the last remnants of goodness from the autumn grass. Mooing is about as excited as a grazing bovine gets, but they’re quietly content in their own way.
Of course, we don’t know what’s going on in their heads, because these creatures can’t talk, but maybe they don’t need to. Watching a gang of two-week-old piglets play hide-andseek around the sow as she languishes in the straw, it’s impossible not to believe they’re having a lot of fun. Lambs will skip and gambol with all the energy of youth in the warmth of late-spring sunshine. It’s safe to assume they are happy creatures.
Joy spreads infectiously to everyone nearby. The unconditional happiness of animals is contagious and makes us humans feel better. And that is what my new book is about. It tells stories of each of the species I’ve had the good fortune to look after to try to maintain their happiness. Yes, they’re definitely all different, but happy animals are most certainly all alike. And so are we, because happiness is all. I hope you enjoy it.
WHAT A MARE! THE NIGHT I REALLY HAD TO DELIVER
I remember watching an episode of All Creatures Great And Small one Sunday evening when I was eight or nine. Tristan had recently started work with his brother Siegfried and James Herriot and, fresh out of vet school, was full of enthusiasm. The old telephone rang and it was a worried farmer, anxious about his mare who was struggling to deliver a foal.
‘But it has a head back Tristan,’ warned James, meaning it was wrongly positioned in the birth canal. ‘It’s not an easy case for your first foaling –are you up to it ors hal li go ?’
Needless to say, Tristan jumped at the challenge. I remember watching this scene and marvelling that there was such a career – a way of life in which you’d be faced with life-anddeath challenges like this on a daily basis. And all in the fresh magical beauty of the Yorkshire countryside. Approximately 15 years later, having graduated from vet school and with a head full of theory, I found myself in a similar position as I faced the prospect of my first foaling. It was one o’clock in the morning in early May and I was rudely awakened by my beeper. A farmer had a mare struggling to give birth. Unlike Tristan, I had no senior colleague offering to go in my place. Not that I wanted that, anyway, I’d been waiting for this moment since vet school.
My previous jobs had gone well and I felt I was on my way towards achieving the reputation of being a decent vet. Tonight’s job would be a challenge though, and there was a lot at stake – the life of the mare, the life of the unborn foal and the trust of the farming family. I crossed my fingers.
As a veterinary student, it is easy to become adept at lambing sheep or calving cows. Sheep farmers are always happy to get the help of a student at lambing time when, out of a flock of 500, somewhere between 50 and 100 might need assistance. It’s similar with cows, and I was lucky to have spent a month as a student working on a busy dairy farm in Dorset where I had helped w it h dozens of calvings.
But horses are a different kettle of fish (so to speak). Firstly, unless you happen to be based at a busy stud in Newmarket, horses tend to be kept in smaller numbers. They almost never have twins, so there is no chance that assistance will be required to untangle the legs of two babies trying to exit the birth canal at the same time, as often happens in sheep. Moreover, unless there’s a problem, foals are delivered in a matter of minutes – and it’s all too easy to miss the action. All these things make it difficult to get experience foaling mares, and to make matters even more stressful, when things go wrong, they usually go very badly wrong.
I arrived at the farm and saw a light shining from the barn. Inside, the owner Diane was keeping watch from a deckchair, wrapped in blankets with a flask of coffee and a bottle of whisky. ‘Ah, it’s you, Julian. I hope you’re feeling fit,’ she said by way of a greeting as she clambered out of her deckchair and adjusted her woolly hat.
‘Morning. What’s the problem?’ I asked.
‘Well, she’s been waxed up for about a week – that’s when I started
sleeping in this chair – but it all started about an hour ago. She’s agitated and I’m worried she’s not making any progress,’ Diane explained.
‘Waxing up’ is a term that describes changes in the udder when a mare is close to giving birth. I peered over the stable door. The mare was lying down, puffing, pushing and then standing up again, clearly agitated.
Diane went into the stable and the mare was visibly calmed by her soothing words as she took hold of the headcollar. By now the mare was standing up, but I couldn’t see the foal. Anxious about whether the horse might kick or twist vigorously at the wrong moment, as gently as I could, with plenty of lubricant on my hand and arm, I made my first tentative internal exploration.
The mare immediately flung herself to the ground as another wave of contractions started. Her legs thrashed and waved dangerously. A horse in pain, writhing and rolling
on the floor, is not very safe. I knelt down to have a second go. My hand slid in easily at first, but vigorous straining resumed as soon as I was in past my elbow and I started to worry that there was a real chance of sustaining a broken arm.
I could feel one foot but nothing else, and my heart sank. In cattle the head follows closely behind the front
feet. Foals have longer legs, so the head is further in. This dawned on me, and I eased further in. I could feel a nose. Then I felt the second front leg. It was bent at the knee, and this was what was causing the obstruction.
I knew I needed to flip that leg forward, straightening it so both front
legs were together. Against the strength of the mare’s contractions, I had to push the errant leg further in to give me more space and then hook the foot up, all the time avoiding her kicks. I huffed and puffed and tried not to swear, and eventually everything was lined up.
The next job was to pull, so I attached ropes to each leg and pulled as if I were trying to unearth a giant root vegetable. Eventually the foal was out, leggy and slimy and alive! I’d done it! I’d delivered my first ever foal!
‘Well done, Julian!’ Diane beamed, letting the new mother get on with licking the foal, as she rushed to give me a hug. ‘I think we deserve a drink!’ she said, pulling the cork out of her whisky bottle. It was nothing compared to Tristan’s first foaling, but I had a warm feeling inside, which was only in small part thanks to the whisky.
All Creatures: Heart-warming Tales From A Yorkshire Vet by Julian Norton is published by Coronet, £16.99. © Julian Norton 2021. Adapted by Mary Greene. To order a copy for £14.95 go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193. Free UK delivery on orders over £20. Offer valid until 20/03/2021.