1980s TV Shows: A Trip Down Memory Lane with… Carol Drinkwater (Helen Herriott in “All Creatures Great and Small”)

Exclusive Interview by Karen Beishuizen

“All Creatures Great and Small” was a British television series based on the books of the British veterinarian James Herriot. It was set in Yorkshire in the mid 1930s. Christopher Timothy played James Herriott, Robert Hardy as Siegfried Farnon and Peter Davison as Tristan Farnon. These three men ran the Skeldale House surgery. Carol Drinkwater played Helen Herriott, James’s wife, for the first three seasons and 39 episodes.

KB: “All Creatures Great and Small”: What was the show about?

It was the episodic daily life of three veterinary surgeons and the wife of one of them living in a tiny country village in north Yorkshire, England, set before WWII. Told with great humor and a gentle approach towards man and beast.

KB: How did you get the part as Helen Herriott?

I was called to the BBC to meet the producer, Bill Sellars, script editor and various other broadcasting bods. I returned to meet with them twice, I think, before my agent received the call to say that I had been offered the role. Which, for history’s sake, you might be amused to hear, I turned down. It was my agent and several actor friends who persuaded me to take it.

KB: What did you like about the character and how did you make it your own?

I had a hard battle, ongoing, with the BBC to give flesh and guts to the role. The real Helen was an incredibly feisty woman and I wanted to be sure that we brought that side of her personality into her daily activities. I felt the scripts showed her as too docile where as I wanted to portray her as the backbone to the surgery which she was in many ways.

KB: Where was the show filmed? In Yorkshire like in the book?

In the early days we filmed the interiors in the BBC studios in Birmingham and exteriors in Yorkshire. Later, it was all filmed on location in Yorkshire, a much better arrangement.

KB: How did a week on the set look like from getting the script to filming?

Our turnaround was fortnightly. In other words one episode took two weeks from rehearsal in London to completion in Yorkshire. A lot of driving was involved. In those days we drove ourselves up and down the country. Today, there would be chauffeurs, I would think.

KB: Do you have a favorite episode?

I have never watched the show, only for a few short moments so I have no favorites.

KB: Looking back now would you have played Helen Herriott differently?

No. And this is not a question I ever ask myself. I did what felt organically in tune with the tole back then. Today, I am at work on many other projects and that is where my energy and creativity is

KB: You played Helen Herriott in the first 3 seasons. Why did you exit the show and what did you do afterwards?

I made 3 series and two TV film-length ‘specials’. I left because I was being offered lots of other work and because I felt the BBC were not expanding the role. I wanted Helen to take on war work in the village, ride a bicycle, get out and help villagers, the elderly, be a participant in her local life – all of which the real Helen did. I felt that with the scripts on offer I had given as much to the role as I could. I needed to expand not necessarily in size of scenes but in character development. Without it, it was time to move on to lots of other challenges. By then, I was writing my first novel “The Haunted School” … and I went on to play the lead in that novel when it was filmed in Australia and was picked up by Disney and won the Chicago Film Festival Gold Award for Children’s Films.

KB: How do you explain that the show is still so beloved even after 45+ years?

Because it was authentic, it was very well acted; we were a happy and generous-to-one-another team, worked for and with each other, not in competition with each other, and most importantly, because the storylines were terrific.

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