Cahillane remembers ‘All Creatures Great and
Small’
By JIM
CAHILLANE
Published:
9/26/2017 7:28:48 PM
Recently,
we’ve been watching “The Yorkshire Vet” on Acorn TV. Skeldale Veterinary Centre
is a fine successor to that run by Alf Wight (known by the pen James Herriot).
The new
show’s vets are Julian Norton and his partner Peter Wright, who trained under Wight.
In a respectful choice of casting, the new show’s narrator is actor Christopher
Timothy who played Herriot in the series, “All Creatures Great and Small.” This
new practice is more of a documentary than Herriot’s, which can cause a few
winces in the watching.
Herriot’s
dog stories and other books about life in the Yorkshire Dales have sold in the
millions. Starting in 1978, through 1990, 90 episodes of “All Creatures Great
and Small” became a Sunday night television staple in our house.
In 2007 we exercised
our love for the show to the max and booked a holiday week in Askrigg, a
Yorkshire village in the heart of Herriot country. Our two-bed apartment was at
the rear of The King’s Arms public house. It was called The Drovers in the “All
Creatures” scripts and we found a welcome there. Its wall featured photos of
Christopher Timothy, Robert Hardy and Peter Davison enjoying a pint of
Yorkshire bitter, which isn’t how it tastes.
Across High
Street was Skeldale House, the TV home for veterinarians Siegfried Farnon
(Hardy), his trainee brother, Tristan (Davison), and our hero Herriot
(Timothy).
In the
opening scenes, Herriot arrives in Yorkshire fresh from college in Glasgow. He
was to be apprentice vet to Farnon, a demanding boss with the softest of
hearts. His calling-card saying was “You must attend!” reminding me of my Irish
father who famously wanted everything done yesterday. As a country vet,
Farnon’s guiding rule was that when the phone rang he responded. Soon his
apprentice, James, shared that load.
I, Maureen,
son Matt and his wife Karen walked in the footsteps of that famous vet and his
television family of true-to-life professionals and country folk. We had lived
inside so many “All Creatures” shows that we felt a kinship with the actors,
their realistic characters, and the unchanging sheep-filled Dales.
Herriot
wrote truth about his fellow workers, his love life, animals encountered, and
how tight-fisted farmers tested his patience. His first novels were “If Only
They Could Talk,” and “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet.” The book’s stories were
slice-of-life tales that transferred easily to the small screen.
Nonetheless,
Hardy had doubts about the show’s appeal. He worried that it would “bore the
townspeople and irritate the country folk.” Hardy’s analysis turned out to be
spectacularly wrong, but his opinion made sense. Early on in his career, Hardy
performed in Shakespeare’s “Henry V” at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Hardy’s
varied acting life spanned 70 years. Yet, his winning role of an irascible
television vet became his legacy.
It became
easier and easier to care about each character in “All Creatures Great and
Small.” Young James Herriot learned how to navigate Yorkshire farmers and their
singular personalities.
One, Mr.
Biggins, would corral James in the pub and try to get free vet advice rather
than pay for an official visit. In one scene he had the whole pub smiling at
his demonstration of an odd hitch in a cow’s back leg. The camera took
lingering views of the farmer’s rear end, as a smiling James asked for repeat
performances.
James drove
up and down the hilly stonewalled roads that we tackled 10 years ago. The
actors drove a succession of cranky vintage vehicles in order to match the
1930s and onward settings. In lambing season the vets might find themselves in
a cold shed as spring snows quieted the scene around them.
In Acorn’s
modern version, Peter Wright says of a new lamb nestling up to its mother,
“After 35 years I still think that what’s life is all about.”
During the
show’s run James Herriot had two actress wives. Carol Drinkwater was unaware
that her part as Helen, a farmer’s daughter and James’s girlfriend, had turned
her into a sex symbol until she was mobbed wherever she appeared. Before James
got around to asking for her hand, Siegfried told him not to wait. Helen, he
observed, nearly stopped traffic just by walking in the town.
James had
rich competition from an upscale young man who drove a beautiful car and chased
Helen about. The broad humor of difficult courtships found James a bit worse
for drink at a dance as her boyfriend looked down his nose at a floored James
while Helen laughed. In vino veritas, so they say, but all came well.
Their
unique honeymoon saw James testing cows across the Dales even as he was showing
off his new spouse to kind farmers’ wives. Helen was one of them.
The show
was once critiqued as a “cup of cocoa drama,” meaning it’s the perfect nightcap
leading to a good night’s sleep. Compared to far too much of today’s television
entertainment, watching “All Creatures” I never had occasion to moan or throw
objects at the TV screen because of language “that would make a sailor blush”
to quote Professor Higgins in “My Fair Lady.”
Robert
Hardy passed away last month at age 92. Like most of us he played many roles in
life. Siegfried Farnon, was just one. In six films he was Winston Churchill!
Yet, in his
obituary his canny, often grouchy vet was held out to be his legacy. The good
news is that “All Creatures” lives on in colorful bucolic videos borrowed from
a local library, seen on YouTube or purchased from a bookstore.
In these
harrowing times, being vetted as “a cup of cocoa” is praise indeed. May Robert
Hardy rest in peace and may a godlike Siegfried Farnon continue caring for
animals — like and unlike us — for eternity. Amen.
Jim
Cahillane, who writes a monthly column, lives in Williamsburg with creatures
wild and domestic, including Liddy, a fairly odd cat.
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