Unutterable Home
by Tania A Maron
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“Where in Yorkshire?”
As a non-native English speaker, I hate this question, though I love Yorkshire. Every time I mention my trip to the North of England, I dread that question as I have to pronounce this: Thirsk. I studied English at school, then at university, and I spent ten years of my life teaching people English, and I still haven’t broken this enigma: Thirsk. I hold my breath for around ten seconds, trying to summon up courage, place the tip of my tongue between my teeth in the right position and let it out. The word that escapes my lips causes perplexity at best or outrage that I was granted a Bachelor’s diploma in English language at worst.
Tania A Maron
Maybe if I had known the trouble, I would not have picked up that book. Growing up in the East of Ukraine, where I had just escaped the Soviet claws, my house was filled with books that every USSR intelligentsia had: Tolstoy, Pushkin, Hugo, Zola, and Camus. Those books had beautiful firm spines with golden letters, lining in volumes on bookshelves and had absolutely no pictures – the fact that my brother and I, both avid readers, found outrageous. The majority of them also had long and depressive descriptions of autumn and could cure insomnia. So, we went the opposite way, hunting for treasure with Stevenson, fighting a cardinal with Duma, exploring Solomon’s mine with Haggard and solving mysteries with Doyle. Until one day at the very end of a shelf, I saw two brown hardcovers: ‘All Creatures Great And Small’ and ‘All Things Bright And Beautiful’ by James Herriot.
“I read Herriot’s books again and again until I knew them almost by heart!”
Suddenly, I moved away from Kharkiv, a giant concrete city full of grey nine-storey buildings that were copycated around the USSR, to the green hills of Yorkshire, following a young vet from Glasgow who moved to Darrowby for work. Doing school homework wasn’t attractive in the first place. Now it didn’t stand a chance for my attention when competing with Herriot, who was saving horses and cows, goats and sheep and navigating the relationship with tough Northern farmers. I craved kindness, as many adults around me were reserved and bitter, trying to survive in a tohubohu country.
“Where is Yorkshire?” – I asked my dad, and he brought out an old world atlas.”
“Where is Yorkshire?” – I asked my dad, and he brought out an old world atlas: the internet era didn’t reach our house for another five years. Gliding through the sleek pages, I found York, New Castle, Leeds. Herriot’s town – Darrowby – was nowhere to be seen.
There were a few more mysteries which goaded my curiosity. The biggest was the Yorkshire pudding. The word pudding in Ukrainian means a sweet dessert consisting of cream or jelly. After the lights were out in my bedroom, I would lie in my bed, trying to imagine this weird but so beloved British dessert with roast meat and potato. The second mystery was a protein cake for cows. In a book, it was simply translated as a galeta, which means a biscuit. Again, I concluded that not only people but animals have a sweet tooth in Yorkshire.
I read Herriot’s books again and again until I knew them almost by heart. At a certain point, I became so confident in my medical knowledge that when my friend pulled a leg, I examined her, following the story of Herriot’s cow with a dislocated hip. Thankfully, pulling the leg with a rope was not needed, so I assured her that she just needed a rest.
“Amid constant insomnia and anxiety, Herriot’s books have been my constant remedy.”
When I became a teenager and entered my online era, first of all, I watched all three funny cat videos that were available on the Internet at that time. After that, I found out James Herriot had more than just two books. His time in the RAF was completely cut out in Soviet editions, probably because it didn’t match the agenda about the USSR winning the war with little help from allies. Darrowby turned into a real town called Thirsk, and James Herriot became a James Wight.
“Where in Yorkshire?” – the ticket lady at King Cross asked me. I was 25, and I had landed in Gatwick a few days before.
“Tirsk.”
“Sorry?”
“Thyorsk.”
Her eyebrows gathered more. “Theersk. Sirsk! Thsyrskth.”
“Sorry. Please, repeat?”
I gave up and typed the name on my phone.
“I asked an old English lady where I could find Yorkshire pudding, and she laughed: ‘We cook it at ‘ome, love!’”
Three hours later, I was there. Thirsk, or however I pronounced it, did not disappoint: there was the tower clock on the cobbled market square, the old Ritz cinema, and the tiny British.
Me on the set of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ houses, and the Yorkshire green hills. Being there felt familiar, and I felt almost home because I often travelled there through pages from my room in Kharkiv, Ukraine, hiding under the blanket with a flashlight.
When I asked an old English lady who was selling books where I could find Yorkshire pudding, she laughed:
“Aye, Yorkshire pudding? We cook it at ‘ome, love!”
Now that I’ve lived in England for half the year, I know very well what Yorkshire pudding is and which local pub is the best for a great Sunday roast. When Russia attacked Ukraine, I left the country and started an unwished nomadic life for the next year and a half before settling down in London. Amid constant insomnia and anxiety, Herriot’s books have been my constant remedy.
“Where in Yorkshire?” my partner asked me when I offered a trip for this spring. He knows well where, as we watched the modern TV show together with many breaks, I would stop and insert absolutely necessary and educative comments about what really happened in the book.
Thirsk, Yorkshire. It’s just because I still have no idea what the heck the cow cake is.
NorthernLife June/July/Aug 24
