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) work, I suppose.' I thought it was an odd thing to say, and was about to ask for the weekend to think it over, when he went on. 'The trouble is, if you did it, you wouldn't be available for the BBC series they've just offered you.' I was to be what was described as a semi-regular. Tristan didn't appear in the opening show, and I was only booked for five episodes out of the thirteen, as the character was away at veterinary college." "I ended up in more of the series because Robert Hardy really liked the way the