SUBLIME SUNDAY night adaptation of James Herriott’s tales of life as a 1930s Yorkshire Dales vet, blessed with an excellent cast led by ROBERT HARDY as Siegfried Farnon, gruff, patrician head of practice, always ready to sound a note of caution as they gathered around the huge wireless (loads of period detail) to hear the latest war news; and CHRISTOPHER TIMOTHY as Herriott himself, stolid, caring practioner, always ready with a reassuring word when it was time to put down a kid’s pet or a pensionable heifer (“‘E’s been a faithful servant to me, Mr ‘Erriott”), and married to CAROL DRINKWATER who regenerated into LINDA BELLINGHAM. Speaking of which, Dr Who was in it as well as perennial wet-behind-ears young tyro Tristan, plus there was haughty village matriarch Mrs Pumphrey, who had a little dog named Tricki-Woo who lived on a cushion, and that indecipherable bloke who called Herriott ‘vet’narian’. The whole thing was topped off by those timeless driving-through-the-Dales-in-a-lovely-old-car titles, with Hardy and Timothy sharing a joke.