All Creatures Great and Small (franchise) "James Herriot", and are set in the fictional town of "Darrowby", based on a combination of Thirsk, Richmond, Leyburn and Middleham.. In the books James Herriot work with fellow veterinary surgeons, Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, based on real-life counterparts, "Donald Sinclair" and his brother "Brian Sinclair" respectively. Wight also used the name "Helen Alderson" for his wife, Joan Danbury. In America the books were collected as pairs into omnibus volumes, as the publisher felt they were too short to publish independently. The title chosen for the first book in the series "All Creatures Great and Small" (and subsequently one of
All Creatures Great and Small (TV series) A decade later, in October 2016, all four main actors from the original run reunited to mark the centenary of Alf Wight's birth. For their parts, Timothy was 74, Hardy was 89, Davison was 65 and Drinkwater was 68. All Creatures Great and Small (TV series) All Creatures Great and Small is a British television series based on the books of the British veterinary surgeon Alf Wight, who wrote under the pseudonym James Herriot. In early 1977, the BBC tasked producer Bill Sellars with the creation of a television series from Herriot's first two novels, "If Only They Could Talk"