The opening bars of Johnny Pearson’s Piano Parchment theme tune, and the line ‘Darrowby 385’ are iconic, as should be the animal names of Boris, Clancy, and Tricky Woo. The Yorkshire Dales and James Herriot are inseparable, you can’t mention either without also thinking about TV’s All Creatures Great and Small. Adapted from Herriot’s books and based largely on his life (the characters were based on vets at Herriot’s first practice, with Helen being his real-life wife Joan), the Sunday night BBC series from 30 years ago is fondly remembered.
I think my own love of the programme lies in the fact that I used to want to be a vet when I was a small boy (indeed it might have actually been the series that made that subconscious decision). I didn’t become one of course, but did toy with the thought again quite recently, but the eight years of veterinary training soon put paid to any ideas of driving about the countryside wearing checked shirts, cords, and shiny shoes.
Following on from the films All Creatures Great and Small and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet, and from 1974 and 1976 respectively, the BBC’s TV series is the most well-known of the on-screen adaptations. First broadcast in 1978, it made household names of Robert Hardy (Siegfried Farnon), Christopher Timothy (James Herriot), Peter Davison (Tristan Farnon), and Carol Drinkwater (Helen Alderson, later Herriot). Timothy became without doubt the most-loved and most famous on-screen Herriot of all.
Christopher Timothy is the most-loved on-screen Herriot (©BBC)
With the beautiful Yorkshire Dales as a backdrop, the series was never to going to be anything but a success. Add in well-acted and scripted scenes, gentle and often humourous stories, and a prime-time Sunday evening slot, and it’s no wonder the show is revered three decades on.
Nothing much happens in each episode (although we recently had one with James’ marriage proposal to Helen, and acceptance, and a preview of the wedding), and that, I suspect is one of the reasons why it works. We find the same thing with the later 1980s Howards’ Way, too. TV execs wouldn’t allow that these days, and would pack each programme full of interwoven and complicated stories.
All Creatures’ interior shots filmed at BBC Pebble Mill, Birmingham
Running for three series, from 1978 to 1980 and with specials in 1983 and 1985, a further four series were broadcast from 1988 to 1990, with 90 episodes in all. The end of the first run saw the storyline cover the outbreak of the Second World War, with the subsequent end starting the second run. The later series saw Oxo commercial mum Lynda Bellingham cast as Helen (but good though she was, it’s Drinkwater – a stage name surely – who will always be the face of the part in my mind).
All Creatures Great and Small ended when all of Herriot’s material had been used, and there were no more stories left to be adapted. Now finally available on DVD, it can charm a whole new army of fans, while appealing to Seventies kids like us, who remember the original broadcasts, and our reliving our childhood Sunday nights.
Tags: All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot, Yorkshire Dales
You’ve gawn an got me all nostalgic now!