Letter: Where is James Herriot’s Shropshire dam?
Wednesday 15th September 2010, 6:00AM BST.
Letter: I have just read Vets Might Fly by James Herriot (aka Alf Wight). In the book he states he spends a while in Shropshire while in the RAF reserves during the Second World War.
One of his main duties was helping to build a dam or the foundations to a dam between 1942 and 1944.
I don’t think he spent that long in Shropshire, but he does praise it as one of the beautiful counties he loved.
I received a signed copy of The Real James Herriot by his son Jim Wight last year and I read all the James Herriot books in the 1980s.
I am returning to these books now during my late middle age and finding them as joyful, cosy and comforting as the first time round. I have also just enjoyed watching the repeats on the Yesterday Channel.
Of course a vet’s life is far from being joyful, cosy and comforting in reality as we all know.
I have just spent a while at the vet’s myself, with my cat, who has not been well.
It seems to me that the pressures on vets are as real as they ever could be and I salute their profession.
They are doctors, surgeons, radiographers and pharmacists all rolled into one.
I wondered if anybody could shed any light on what dam “James Herriot” would have been working on at that time during his RAF experience and where that dam is situated?
Did anybody ever meet Alf when he was in Shropshire? My questions are for general interest reasons only.
I look forward to the replies.
Ian Payne
Walsall
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Interesting article!
I believe that the dam may well have been at Wem, North Shrops.The River Roden was modified, widened and diverted from its previous narrow channel so that there was no longer the risk that the land a little upstream at Sleap would flood.A war-time military airfield had been built at Sleap,mainly used I believe by the USAF.The airfield is still used by the local aero-club.
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