Peter Davison left Darrowby to become the fifth Doctor, and his daughter later married David Tennant, which makes Tristan Farnon the tenth Doctor's father-in-law. All Creatures Great and Small ran on BBC One from 1978 to 1990, with an eight-year gap in the middle because the BBC had simply used up James Herriot's books.

We follow it in order: Alf Wight, the Thirsk vet who wrote as James Herriot; the 1975 film with Anthony Hopkins as Siegfried; Christopher Timothy, whose father introduced The Goon Show; Robert Hardy, taught at Oxford by Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and an authority on the medieval longbow; Carol Drinkwater, from A Clockwork Orange to an olive farm in Provence; and Lynda Bellingham, the second Helen, whose last autumn in 2014 moved the whole country.

There is a coincidence in here you will enjoy. The real Siegfried was called Donald Sinclair, the very same name as the hotelier who inspired Basil Fawlty, and the Siegfried of the 2020 remake is Samuel West, Sybil Fawlty's son.

To my mind it is still the most comforting drama the BBC ever made.

DISCLAIMER

The narration is AI-generated. Dates and ages were checked against public sources in September 2026.