All Creatures Great And Small (1974, Simon Ward, Anthony Hopkins)

Simon Ward, in the role played in the popular television series by Christopher Timothy, moves from London to Yorkshire in 1937 and becomes live-in assistant to vet Anthony Hopkins. There he meets Hopkins’ younger brother Brian Stirner, who is making a career out of failing his university exams, stern housekeeper Christine Buckley and bookkeeper Brenda Bruce and gets on with his job of ministering to sick animals.

These include an overfed Pekinese belonging to Daphne Oxenford, an ill horse which has to be shot, and a sick dog. And he has a run-in with wily farmer Freddie Jones, who is attempting to swindle an insurance company by claiming his prize cow has been struck by lightning. He also meets farmer’s daughter Lisa Harrow and a rocky romance develops between them.

Things finally run smoothly – until Ward has to tell his new bride that his honeymoon will be spent testing cattle for TB…

production details
UK | EMI | 92 minutes | 1974

Director: Claude Whatham
Writer: Hugh Whitemore, from the novels If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet by James Herriot

cast
Simon Ward as James Herriot
Anthony Hopkins as Siegfried Farnon
Brian Stirner as Tristan Farnon
Lisa Harrow as Helen Alderson
Freddie Jones as Cranford
T. P. McKenna as Soames
Brenda Bruce as Miss Harbottle
John Collin as Mr Alderson
Christine Buckley as Mrs Hall
Jane Collins as Connie
Fred Feast as Farmer in Cinema
Glynne Geldart as Joyce
Harold Goodwin as Dinsdale’s Uncle
Doreen Mantle as Mrs Seaton