New TV series to focus on early life of 'James Herriot'

It has commissioned a dramatisation of his childhood and veterinary training, in Glasgow, in three one-hour parts, with an hour-long supporting documentary. Young James will be filmed over the next nine months, for broadcast next year, but casting has not yet started.

James Alfred Wight was born in Sunderland in 1916 but his parents moved to Glasgow when he was three weeks old and he grew up there.

At the age of 10, he got his first dog, a red setter named Don, and read an article in the Meccano Magazine which switched him on to the idea of being a vet. He started at the Glasgow Veterinary College in 1933 and qualified in December 1939. His diaries of his formative experiences will be the foundation of the new series.

In July 1940 he arrived in Thirsk, to work for Donald Sinclair, who became Siegfried Farnon in the books. He disguised his own name, too, because vets were not supposed to advertise.

The books were published between 1966 and 1981 and prompted several successful films and the TV series from 1978 to 1990. In 1984, Mr Wight was honoured by the British Tourist Authority for his contribution to worldwide awareness of Yorkshire. He died in 1995.

One of the scriptwriters for the TV series All Creatures Great And Small, Johnny Byrne, sketched out the Young James idea some years ago but died before it was finally taken up.