Series 3 of the Series from the BBC.. (more)

James Herriot
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	Web http://www.jamesherriot.org

LONDON -- James Herriot, who shared his experiences as a country veterinarian in the best-selling memoir "All Creatures Great and Small," died Thursday in the Yorkshire Dales where he had ministered to animals for half a century. He was 78. He died of prostate cancer at his home near Thirsk, his granddaughter, Emma Page, said.

"He had been ill for three years, but he had borne his illness very patiently and bravely. His family were all with him when he died peacefully at home today," she said.

Herriot -- the pen name and alter ego of James Alfred Wight -- wrote 15 books in the time that he could wrest away from his practice. They sold 50 million copies in 20 countries. But he continued his veterinary practice long after his books made him famous. "If a farmer calls me with a sick animal, he couldn't care less if I were George Bernard Shaw," he once said.

A quiet, modest man with a trace of his Glasgow upbringing in his voice, "Alf" Wight kept out of the limelight as best he could. Despite the pen name, many fans tracked him down at Skeldale House, the ivy-covered home and office familiar to his readers and viewers of the popular British television series based on "All Creatures Great and Small."

The son of an orchestra leader who played background music for silent films, he was born Oct. 13, 1916, and grew up in Glasgow. He trained at Glasgow Veterinary College, arriving in Thirsk in 1940 for a now-famous job interview with Donald Sinclair -- Siegfried Farnon in the book.

He joined the practice and, aided and abetted by the hapless Tristan -- Sinclair's brother, Brian -- settled in among the dour farmers of the Yorkshire Dales.

He started writing when he was 50.

"I was dumbfounded by the reaction to that first book, absolutely dumbfounded," he told the Daily Mail in 1981. "The most I had hoped for was that someone would publish it and a few people quite enjoy reading it."

Donald Sinclair, 84, the country veterinarian who inspired the Siegfried Farnon character in "All Creatures Great and Small" died June 28, in London. He died four months after former veterinary partner, Alf Wight, who wrote under the pen name James Herriot describing the adventures of a trio of veterinarians in the Yorkshire dales of northern England.