All creatures great & small
Matt Jackson-Smith shares the ups and downs of life as a country vet
THE YORKSHIRE VET Tues, 8pm, Channel 5
Wrestling a skittish frog, being headbutted by a wallaby and giving a charming little chicken a hollywood-style smile – it’s all in a day’s work for vet matt Jackson-Smith, one of the stars of fly-onthe-wall tV show the Yorkshire Vet.
The Channel 5 programme, which begins its 18th series this week, has proved a huge hit with animal lovers for its mix of drama, laughter and tears, as Matt and his fellow town and country vets help a variety of animals back to health.
Matt admitted there were plenty of nerve-wracking moments this time – including undertaking an operation on a white-backed vulture and dart-gunning antibiotics into a runaway young deer.
“Examining the vulture was tricky,” said Matt. “It was going into a breeding programme, so it was really important that there were no problems with it.
“We had to sedate it and I have to say, putting this incredible bird under anaesthetic definitely got my blood pumping.”
For Matt, darting a deer was surreal. He said: “I lined her up in my sights, just like when I’m playing PlayStation, holding my breath at the right time, pulling the trigger, letting fly and bull’s-eye. She made a full recovery, which was good. It was certainly novel drug delivery!”
The animals steal every scene and Beauty, the disabled chicken who is carried around by her owner Pamela in her handbag, is no exception.
“Beauty is a very, very pampered chicken,” said Matt. “She had a deformed leg from the start and she comes to me to make sure she’s constantly got a Hollywood smile.
“And then she often goes to the garden centre and picks out her own tea. We have a clip where they give
her a lettuce sandwich. That is one loved chicken!”
Being a vet is a serious business and there are risks. “Every time you do a procedure, that could have a disastrous outcome; the TV crew do such a good job at capturing that tension,” said Matt.
“You can feel your blood pressure go up, the blood rushing to your face, your heart’s going… it’s that dead focus.”
Being a vet brings moments of hilarity too.
“We’ve got an otter on the bloopers, which escaped in one of the rooms, and we had a wallaby that head-butted me and gave me a fat lip,” added Matt. “Happens all the time.”