Vets at war!
Siegfried and James fall out over how to improve the practice…
The decision to give James more responsibility at Skeldale House leads to friction between him and Siegfried as All Creatures Great and Small continues.
‘Siegfried realises James is a good vet and he’s an asset to the practice,’ says Samuel West, who plays the grouchy head vet. ‘So grudgingly, he’s seen that James needs to be allowed to take more initiative.’
Although James (Nicholas Ralph) is keen to prove his worth, Siegfried is reluctant to let him make any major decisions and sneakily tries to fob him off by asking him to sort through the practice’s haphazard accounts.
Squabbles
But Siegfried ends up feeling niggled when James’ efficient wife Helen (Rachel Shenton) lends a hand.
James works out he could bring extra money to the practice by becoming part of a government scheme to carry out more tuberculosis testing on local cattle, but Siegfried believes it could potentially damage their farming clients’ livelihoods.
But as the squabbling vets try to help a farmer unravel the mystery of why her calves have fallen ill, can the pair reconcile?
‘Siegfried is controlling and this all pulls against something that’s deep in him,’ says
Samuel. ‘But he’s trying to hold things together…’