They saw themselves as artists, and so did their son. Although his father, James, worked on the Glasgow docks, and his mother, Hannah, had her own dressmaking business, their first calling had been music, and in interviews Wight described both of them as musicians. He sent them money, wrote frequent letters and visited them often. Wight’s parents sacrificed a lot to nurse their son back to health and to send him to better schools, so he did all he could to express his gratitude. In 1932, at around age 15, he nearly died of diphtheria and afterwards took up an exercise regimen called My System, which included running, stretching and regular cold baths (possibly the source of James’s love of skinny-dipping). But did people actually jog in the 1930s? Wight did. In the TV version we first see James (played by Nicholas Ralph) as he takes a morning run along the docks in Glasgow. The delicious perk recounted in the stories, in which grateful farmers feed the country vets, was actually one way the two men eased the pangs of wartime austerity. Staples like eggs, butter and bacon were rationed. (Or trying to neither made it as a fighter pilot.) Wight and Sinclair teamed up, but in the early days they were often separated by stints serving their country. (Or trying to, according to letters he wrote.) Donald Sinclair, the model for the character Siegfried Farnon (played in the Channel 5 adaptation by Samuel West), was about to begin his own RAF service and wanted to leave his practice in capable hands. While waiting for his RAF call-up Wight continued work as a rural vet, tending to ailing cows in the middle of air raids.
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