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) time in June 1977. "We all had a meeting together in London," recalled Hardy, "and Bill Sellars said, 'Now, these characters are all based on real people. None of you are to meet these people until we have made at least three episodes.' So I immediately got into my car and fled up to Yorkshire to meet my man, Donald Sinclair. I was intrigued beyond measure by him. He was a true eccentric and, like all true eccentrics, he had no idea himself how odd he was! He absolutely hated what I did, because he had no idea he was