The Rural Voice, 1979-07, Page 13TV can bring us together
I don't know about your house, but around our's we've been
enjoying the new television series from the B.B.C. that's been on
the local channel the last few weeks: "All Creatures Great and
Small."
The series is based on the books of James Herriot who tells of
his adventures as a veterinarian in the hills of Yorkshire,
England back in the days before World War II. My wife had
already read two of the Herriott books, "All Creatures Great and
Small" and "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and she laughed
all the way through them (which made me hate James Herriott
since she never laughs at a thing I write.) I turned on the first
program mostly for her benefit since I've found a lot of British
television just isn't to my taste. I soon got chuckling along
though and now its one of the few programs on the tube I try not
to miss (most programs I spend more time trying to miss). A
friend a couple of weeks la ter started telling me about the
wonderful show he'd discovered the night before so I guess I'm
not alone in my enjoyment.
The show is about as opposite to the ordinary television fare as
one can get. Instead of people making very unfunny jokes about
people's sexuality or lack thereof in rather sterile city settings,
we have a vet trudging among the cowbarns of England dealing
with everyday, real life situations. There's little fake about the
setting. The animals are real and even some of the action is real
with the actor who plays Herriot sticking his hand deep inside a
cow's posterior. Now that's really getting into a part.
I think the thing that's really brought home to me in the series
is how much people are alike no matter where they live. I mean
here we are seeing farmers halfway around the world in the fells
of Yorkshire and yet aside from the accent, they're pretty much
like the farmers here in southern Ontario, or at least like the
farmers of the same era were here. The series rings true
although it's in far off England because many of the scenes
shown remind me of growing up in Bruce County and having the
vet come on a call.
Much the same feeling of people being pretty much the same
was experienced recently when the actors of Toronto's Theatre
Passe Muraille toured the small towns of the English countryside
this spring with The Farm Show, a play about Ontario farm life,
particularly as experienced near Clinton back in 1972. The
British country people who saw the play said that once they got
used to the strange accents of the Canadians, they could see
people who reminded them very much of their friends and
neighbours on the stage. it is the marvellous power of television
and the theatre to promote understanding, to make us see that
people are pretty much alike no matter where they live and
hopefully, to bring the world a little closer together because of
this understanding.
Something else that came to mind in the series is how
important a role the veterinarian plays in agriculture, and how
little credit we so often give him (or her).
We tend to take our vets for granted. We never think of them
until they are needed then expect them to be there immediately
and to work miracles. In a day and age where medical doctors
have long since quit making house calls, vets are still at the
ready to come running, even at hours they'd prefer to stay in
bed, in order to meet an emergency on the farm.
Vets have the choices of keeping comfortable hours and
making high salaries by working in the cities, looking after
pampered city dogs and cats but the farm vets choose instead to
really serve. We should be grateful to them a little more often
than we are.
VANASTRA
FACTORY
OUTLET
Highway 4 - south of Clinton at Vanastra
"The Store That Saves You More"
• MENS' • BOYS' • LADIES'
• GIRLS' • BABY WEAR • YARD
GOODS • SEWING MACHINES
• POUND GOODS • GPOCERIES
NEW STORE HOURS.
Monday -Friday 10 a.m.-9p.m.
Saturday 10a.m.-6p.m.
Sunday 12 noon-6p.m.
THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1979 PG. 11