All Creatures Great and Small (TV series) that be wanted to cast the role. Sellars, instead, asked Timothy if he would accept the role of Tristan Farnon. "I had a wife, I had children, I had a mortgage to pay, and I wasn't working. So I said, 'No. It's Herriot or nothing.'" Timothy put everything on the line. "I got home one night, at about 9 o'clock. My wife was washing up in the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and she said, without turning round, 'You've got the Herriot part.'" Timothy also stated that, after all of the roles had been cast except that of Herriot,
All Creatures Great and Small (TV series) production team would meet in the studio that evening to see what state the studio was in. We'd need to check that the set building had been completed and if the sets were dressed ready for camera rehearsals to start the next day. The good thing about using the Birmingham studio was that they were excellent in design and set building. I liked working there, and they had terrific pride in "All Creatures". The first day — in this case the Sunday — the cameras, sound, lighting, designers, scenery changes and action properties, costume and makeup rehearsed all the scenes