All Creatures Great and Small books: Where in the Yorkshire Dales were Alf Wight’s famous books set that inspired the Channel 5 series starring Nicholas Ralph and Rachel Shenton and what are they about?

The original All Creatures Great and Small literary franchise was written by James Alfred Wight, better known as Alf Wight, under the pen name James Herriot and has been adapted into films and TV shows.

The books are based on his experiences as a veterinary surgeon and around 60 million copies were sold in 2020 before the next series adaptation on Channel 5 was aired starring Nicholas Ralph, Samuel West and Rachel Shenton.

The BBC series aired in 1978 and up until that year, Alf Wight had already published six of his books: If Only They Could Talk (1970), It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet (1972), Let Sleeping Vets Lie (1973), Vet in Harness (1974), Vets Might Fly (1976) and Vet in a Spin (1977).

What are the All Creatures Great and Small books about and where are they set?

The book series centres around the adventures of veterinary surgeon James Herriot. In the books James works with fellow veterinary surgeons Siegfried and Tristan Farnon, based on real-life counterparts, Donald Sinclair and his brother Brian Sinclair respectively.

Mr Wight used the name Helen Alderson for his wife, Joan Danbury. In real life, Joan was not a farmer’s daughter, but worked as a secretary.

According to one source, Alf met her in a group outing to a local dance as opposed to their meet-cute in the books.

As well as the above books published until 1977, other books include The Lord God Made Them All (1981), Every Living Thing (1992) and in addition to these books, a series of nine James Herriot Children’s Picture Books were published.

The book series is set in the Yorkshire Dales, in the fictional town of Darrowby, based on a combination of Thirsk, Richmond, Leyburn and Middleham.