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,
Robert Hardy Consort in the award-winning 13-hour serial "Edward the Seventh" (known as "Edward the King" to the American audience), which he regarded as one of his best performances. "I thought I'd done a good job there, although I believe the Royal Family didn't like it all. There are always people who don't like what one does." He was seen as the irascible senior veterinarian Siegfried Farnon in the long-running "All Creatures Great and Small" (1978–90), an adaptation of James Herriot's semi-autobiographical books. Hardy also made an appearance in the 1986–88 ITV comedy series "Hot Metal", in which he played the dual