ONE of my favourite authors was the much missed Alf Wight, better known under his pseudonym of James Herriot, the Yorkshire vet

I had devoured all his books long before they were made into the television series All Creatures Great and Small, which I felt was something of a disappointment, as the actors chosen to represent Herriot and his associates Siegfried and Tristan Farnon bore little or no resemblance to the mental images I had built up of them over the years.

But the Herriot tale which has given me great comfort over the years is not some miraculous cure of a sickly Shorthorn, but the human tragedy of Sam Broadbent.

You may recall that Sam was the archetypal village idiot, who had only one redeeming feature – his ability to imitate a fly.

When farmers were at their wit’s end trying to round up their rebellious, half-wild cattle in the high Dales, they would send for Simple Sam, who could cow the most frivolous beasts into submission by producing a sudden swelling of angry sound, a vicious humming and buzzing which was the perfect imitation of the deadly warble fly.

The effect on heifers was electric, as the carefree frolic of tossing heads, waving tails and kicking heels was replaced by a docile tractability and willingness to please.

And when Herriot commented on the wonderful gift that Sam had, the local farmer commented: “Aye he can imitate a fly all right – poor awd lad, it’s t’only bloody thing he can do.”

Now here was a character I could relate to, because like Sam, I am spectacularly good at being bad at just about everything.

Take painting and drawing, where my skills have never developed beyond the matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs I drew at primary school.

I famously excelled myself at grammar school by once scoring nought out of 100 in an algebra test, and received a severe whacking from a chemistry teacher when asked to explain what I found so difficult about the concept of valency he had been drumming into us for a whole term .

“I haven’t the faintest idea about anything you have been talking about sir,” I answered frankly and, ultimately, painfully.

One general science teacher did tell me I could have a future career as a doctor – “You have no understanding of biology or any other sciences, but you certainly have the handwriting for the job,” he sneered.

I used to dread woodwork and metalwork lessons, for while other boys were creating scale models of Blackpool Tower and the Empire State Building, all I could produce was impressive piles of sawdust and metal filings, and apoplexy in the teacher.

There were issues too with motorbike and car maintenance in later years when my eternally patient father in law, a mechanic of many years’ standing, spent hours teaching me how to set the points on my Mini with the aid of cigarette packets and feeler gauges, but he might as well have been addressing me in an obscure dialect of Mandarin Chinese.

I once attempted to change the spark plugs in my Datsun Cherry, which ended up needing a new engine, and when I put my third son’s new bike together one Christmas, my pride at watching him ride it turned to horror when the handlebars came off in his hands and he crashed into a wall.

But well into my seventh decade I have finally found something I can do better than anyone I know – and that is falling over.

I have always had a propensity for taking the odd tumble, but the older I get, the more frequently I find myself flat on my back, staring at the sky and wondering how I got there. I seldom hurt myself, as one of the few advantages of being short is the fact I don’t have very far to fall.

A couple of years ago, I measured my length in the mud en route to picking up grandchildren from a posh hotel, raising questions as to whether they should be released to this dripping apparition, and only this week, I managed to find the only patch of ice in a stable. I went down so suddenly, a workmate thought I had collapsed with a heart attack.

Sam Broadbent, you are not alone.