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) and out' rule, and the similar advice Patrick Troughton had given me. We were in the middle of filming the first "All Creatures Great and Small" Christmas Special, and the previous night, over a thick gammon steak and eggs, in a pub in Middleham, I'd discussed my future choices with Chris Timothy. I'd already had a similar talk with Robert Hardy, and both agreed it was time for me to move on. That's what I told my agent. So I burned my bridges and tried to imagine life after "Doctor Who", never imagining that there wouldn't really be one." Parts