Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I waited eagerly for 8 months to receive this book, then I had to wait another week before I could open the pages without weeping. The first two paragraphs in the Prologue are enough to set me off: "On that day a great friend had died. His name was James Alfred Wight, a father in whose company I had spent countless happy hours. A man I shall never forget." We have all lost a great friend in Alf Wight. How many countless happy hours have we spent with James Herriot, either in books or TV shows? Indeed none of us will ever forget him. I wish I had been able to meet him. I would like to thank Jim Wight personally for writing this book. He expresses his first feelings of misgiving about trying to live up to his father's excellent writing, but he need not have worried. He tells about a boyhood friend of Alf's who jumps out of a second floor window with an umbrella. "The old umbrella suddenly turned inside out and, accompanied by the screaming boy, zoomed to the ground." This could have come straight off James Herriot's pen. Alf Wight had a huge heart, and it seems that his son does, too. It is clear that he misses his father terribly. He presents Alf as a perfectly ordinary person who was astonished at his own fame, and who still remained "99% vet." This book shows the good and the bad of Alf Wight, his family and his friends. And yet I came away still in love with Siegfried, Tristan, and all the rest. And still totally devoted to James Herriot. Thank you, Jim.