Clara’s Verdict
I grew up with James Herriot. My grandmother had the full set in hardback, and I read them in sequence across several childhood summers in Sussex. Coming back to The Lord God Made Them All in Christopher Timothy’s narration felt less like discovering something new and more like visiting a place you know very well but haven’t seen for years. The Yorkshire Dales are still there. The farmers are still impervious to new-fangled treatments. The animals are still magnificent and infuriating in equal measure. And the warmth of these books is completely genuine, not manufactured, which is rarer than it should be.
This is the fourth volume of Herriot’s memoirs in the All Creatures Great and Small series, narrated by Christopher Timothy, published by Macmillan Digital Audio in June 2016, and rated 4.7 from 7 listeners. A note on series order: if you are new to Herriot, please begin with the first book. This fourth volume assumes familiarity with James, Helen, Siegfried, and Tristan, and that familiarity is half the pleasure.
About the Audiobook
Running to 11 hours and 30 minutes, this edition covers the period after Herriot’s wartime RAF service, as he returns to Darrowby and to the veterinary practice that forms the heart of his memoir writing. The book balances domestic comedy, the comedy of professional life, and occasional passages of real poignancy about animals and the people who care for them. The subplot involving his young son Jimmy following him on rounds, copying his every move, is one of the most charming sequences in the entire series.
Herriot’s prose is deceptively simple. He writes about the Yorkshire Dales and their inhabitants with the kind of close, affectionate observation that only comes from decades of genuine belonging to a place. The comedy, when it comes, is never cruel. The goat that has eaten 293 tomatoes is a perfect example of Herriot’s method: the absurdity is precise, the detail is specific, and the laughter is never at anyone’s expense in any way that stings. These books are fundamentally kind, which is a quality that has nothing to do with sentimentality and everything to do with the author’s genuine feeling for both people and animals.
The broader context of this fourth volume is worth noting. The world has changed after the war. New treatments exist. The farmers are not always convinced. Herriot navigates modernity arriving in a landscape that preferred the old ways, and he does it with patience rather than condescension. That quality of patience is one of the books’ enduring appeals.
The Narration
Christopher Timothy is irreplaceable here. Having played James Herriot in the original BBC television adaptation, he carries an authority in this role that no other narrator could replicate. His handling of the Yorkshire characters is deeply sympathetic without being caricature. He understands the cadences of rural Yorkshire speech without pushing them into pastiche. When he voices the farmers, you believe them entirely.
More importantly, he understands what these books are emotionally. The narration is warm throughout, but never saccharine. He handles the passages about animal suffering with the same directness that Herriot himself brought to them: clear-eyed, unsentimental, but fully feeling. This is one of the great audiobook performances in the British memoir tradition, and it is impossible to imagine these books working as well with anyone else in the role.
What Readers Say
Listeners consistently describe the Herriot audiobooks as comfort listening of the highest order, and this volume is no exception. Reviews mention warmth, humour, nostalgia, and the pleasure of returning to familiar characters in a familiar landscape. One listener mentioned the BBC and Channel 5 series adaptations as context, noting that the books remain as charming as ever regardless of which version you encountered first. Kate Humble’s endorsement, noting that the books remain every bit as charming, heartwarming and laugh-out-loud funny as they were thirty years ago, reflects the general consensus with considerable accuracy.
The rating of 4.7 from 7 listeners, while a modest sample in the context of a major series, is consistent with the reception of Herriot’s work across all formats and across multiple generations of readers.
Who Should Listen?
For anyone who has read the earlier Herriot volumes in any format and hasn’t yet listened to them with Timothy narrating, this is the format to choose. For new listeners, begin with the first book and work through in sequence: the pleasure compounds with familiarity. For anyone who loved the television series and hasn’t read the source material, the audiobooks are a genuine revelation. Those who prefer darker or more structurally complex memoir writing will find Herriot too gentle for their tastes. This is writing designed for pleasure and comfort, and it is exceptionally good at both.
The Lord God Made Them All is available on Audible UK. Listen on Audible UK
