DVD Review: All Creatures Great and Small: Season Three

All Creatures Great and Small: Season Three
(DVD All)

I just recently viewed the third season of All Creatures Great and Small which aired on PBS this Spring and decided that it was time to do a recommendation for this marvelous series. I am a huge fan of James Herriot (aka James Alfred Wight) and have read all of his books and every book that the library owns on him and his beloved Yorkshire. Part biographical, part fictionalized accounts of experiences that he and his son had as veterinarians in the Thirsk area of Yorkshire, James recounts life working in the Yorkshire Dales for the incredible owner of the veterinary practice, Siegfried Farnon (aka Donald Sinclair). This series had been televised before with Robert Hardy as Siegfried and Christopher Timothy as James Herriot back in the 1970s-80s, but this new series has many things going for it to rival the original production. First and foremost, the new All Creatures cast brings a more realistic edge to each character, giving them more emotional growth as they move from childish banter in the early episodes to serious topics such as the beginning of World War II in season three. With this season we see James happily married to his beloved Yorkshire farm girl, Helen, but the possibility of James enlisting as a soldier threatens to tear them apart. The theme for season three seems to be finding love and losing the ones you love as the young men are leaving for war. There are wonderful performances from all of the main characters, but especially from the characters of Siegfried (Samuel West), Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) and James (Nicholas Ralph), the three veterinarians in the practice. I look forward to the next season!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try James Herriot’s Favorite Dog Stories, all of the books in the All Creatures Great and Small series by Herriot, James Herriot’s Cat Stories, James Herriot’s Yorkshire, The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father by Jim Wright, and the original All Creatures Great and Small series (1978-80 and 1988-90) with Robert Hardy and Christopher Timothy.)

 

( Internet Movie Database entry for this film ) | ( official All Creatures Great and Small web site )

 

Recommended by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet by Graham Lord

James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet
by Graham Lord (B H43551)

The last James Herriot biography that I reviewed was by Herriot’s son, Jim Wight, and titled The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father. Prior to his death, Alf Wight (otherwise known as James Herriot), told his son that he did not plan to write his own autobiography and had turned down several offers from publishers to have a detailed biography written. Alf told his son, Jimmy, that if anyone were to write his biography, he would want it to be written by him — the son who knew his father better than anyone. Jimmy left his job as a veterinarian to commit to the project of writing his father’s biography following Alf’s death in 1995. Prior to the release of that biography, another one was written: James Herriot: The Life of a Country Vet, written by journalist Graham Lord. Graham Lord wrote an excellent review of James Herriot’s book for the London Sunday Express, which really helped to get publicity for the book for an unknown author. Alf was so pleased by this that he wrote a very nice thank you letter to Lord and for many years would give him credit for jump-starting his career as a writer. I decided to read these books simultaneously to see how they compare.

 

Graham Lord produced a marvelous look at all aspects of the life of Alfred Wight in this biography using meticulous research, scores of interviews with the people who knew him or his family, and his own first-hand knowledge of the author during his years when he was writing about his alter-ego, James Herriot. I found his research into old school records from Alf’s earliest years in Glasgow all the way through his college years to be exceptionally fascinating. Photographs of the schools including Yoker Primary School and Hillhead High School along with photos of classmates and school records are a nice addition to the research that Lord did in looking at those early years. I was impressed that he was able to track down classmates of Alf’s and get interviews with them so that the reader can see what his life was like in Glasgow during that period before World War II.

 

One of the things that disturbed me the most about Lord’s book is that he dwelt too much on the occupations of Alf’s parents and worried too much about the discrepancies between listed occupations for Jim and Hannah Wight and how they were described by Alf. Many of those discrepancies could have been easily cleared up by asking Alf’s son Jimmy which left me to wonder why he didn’t make the attempt. Also, he seemed to think that Hannah lived “comfortably” on her own means without following up to find out that Alf had been supporting her his entire life, buying his parents’ house for them from his own limited income.

 

What I did enjoy about Lord’s biography of James Herriot is that he included lots of information from each of the publishers who published the books as well as information about the film versions of Herriot’s life, followed closely by the marvelous BBC production of “All Creatures Great and Small” starring Christopher Timothy and Robert Hardy. The photos included of Yorkshire and the various locations used in the films and television series were fun to see.

 

I was pleased that Graham Lord mentioned at the end of his book that Jimmy had taken time off from working as a vet to spend time working on his biography of his father. Having read both of these at the same time, I would have to say that Jim Wright’s version is the better of the two, but Lord’s book has more information about the old television series if you are interested in reading about that. If Alf were alive, I know which one he would suggest that you read — the one written by the person who knew him best, working alongside him all those years in Thirsk: his son, Jim Wight.

 

For those interested in the film versions, the library owns the 1974 film with Simon Ward as James Herriot; also the complete series of the television program starring Christopher Timothy as James, and the newest television series starring Nicholas Ralph as the young James Herriot. I just recently discovered that there is another series in the United Kingdom called “The Yorkshire Vet” looking at the veterinary practice started by James Herriot, currently run by one of his former assistants, Peter Wright. Both of Alf Wight’s children, Jimmy and Rosie, are still living in England.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father by Jim Wight, James Herriot’s Yorkshire by James Herriot or any of the books or DVDs in the All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot.)

 

( publisher’s official James Herriot: Life of a Country Vet web page ) | ( Wikipedia entry for Graham Lord )

 

Recommended by Kim J.
Public Service — Bennett Martin Public Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Real James Herriot by Jim Wright

The Real James Herriot
by Jim Wright (B H4355w)

 

Having recently read all of James Herriot’s books, I decided that I wanted to know more about the author of these delightful stories. Within our own collection of biographies is an excellent biography of Alf Wight (the man behind the books) as told by his son, Jim Wight. No one could have done a better job in relating all of the things that made Alf such a master storyteller than the man who spent his entire life working alongside his father in the Yorkshire veterinary practice that Alf Wight describes so lovingly through his books. Alf Wight had been approached many times by publishers wanting to write his biography, but he had always turned them down. In his later years, he told his son Jim that if ever a biography were to be written about him, he would want his son to be the one to do it. Jim Wight would be the first to tell you that he was not a writer, but he accepted the challenge as a testament of his respect and love for the man whom he called Dad and with whom he worked side by side in the veterinary practice in Thirsk.

 

This was a deeply personal book, relating Alf’s experiences growing up in Glasgow, Scotland and the difficulties of his early years as a veterinarian in Yorkshire. Although Alf Wight did a wonderful job of showing the trials and triumphs of his career, we get to see behind the scenes with descriptions of health problems he faced, in particular, his bouts with depression. This is an excellent book and filled with the same humor that I cherished so much in the James Herriot books. If you want to know more about the “real” James Herriot, then look no further. Here you will find “a totally honest man whose fine sense of humor and air of goodwill towards other ensured that he was respected by all who knew him.”

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try James Herriot’s Yorkshire, All Creatures Great and Small, or any other titles by James Herriot.)

 

( official www.jamesheriot.org web site ) | ( official worldofjamesherriot.com web site ) | ( Wikipedia article on James Herriot )

 

See Kim J.’s review of the new PBS series All Creatures Great and Small in the June 2021 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

See Kim J.’s review of James Herriot’s The Lord God Made Them All in the September 2021 Staff Recommendations here on BookGuide!

 

Recommended by Kim J.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!