[Music] the real life SE freed was a man called Donald Sinclair and um Donald didn't didn't really appreciate or believe he was quite like the SE freed in the books um but everybody who knew Donald would say that Donald Sinclair was much much worse than the SE thank you for joining us for the magic of Masterpiece collection if you love all creatures great and small as much as we do at PBS books then you'll want to stay right here as we talk with the show's writer and executive producer Ben vanstone Ben takes us through the book adaptations for the series and some of his favorite moments and if you can't get enough of All Creatures you want to become a member of the the PBS books Readers Club on Facebook later this month PBS books Readers Club will host an all creatures conversation that you won't want to miss I'm Heather Marie montia and you're watching PBS Books thank you for joining us PBS books in collaboration with Masterpiece is pleased to host a conversation with lead writer and executive producer Ben vanstone discussing the much anticipated season 3 of a Creatures Great and Small the season begins in Spring 1939 with James and Helen preparing to walk down the aisle it is a seven episode series full of joy compassion and challenges moments of Trials and Triumph viewers are brought on the adventures with all of the residents of skeldale house in Darby and throughout the gorgeous Yorkshire Dales let's take a moment and watch the trailer you make a good team what he means is he couldn't do it without me it feels really like a continuation from season 2 James this wedding business is really rather inconsiderate of oh is it secret yes it damn well is are we sure we don't want him to say a few words at the service it's funny it's delightful surviving secret we find Tristan at the start of season 3 much like all the other characters all in an absolute bus over the wedding you really are the most ridiculous creature I hope you're referring to the dog it's a celebration it's fireworks but it's also very romantic relocating to scale house is a really big thing for Helen I'm so used to doing everything CU feel bad that it's all left to you this is my own and you're not on the outside this is your room too for Mrs Hall one of the challenges is negotiating a new dynamic in the house set up this unit at the top of skeldale house it's kind of their little world still can't get used to the idea of the being up there they're probably enjoying themselves more than you think unfortunately for the women of darab my affections shall not be given as glibly as before Holding Out for Mrs Right certain been plenty of Mrs wrongs Tristan really still has a lot of growing up to do gentlemen I'm sure you're aware of the growing tensions in Europe you're wasting your time with these two aren FR oh hang on a minute I'm perfectly capable occupation vs they have a more important role to play at home there a war it just makes everything feel very real how can I good conscience watch those young Lads go off to their training whil I stay here you protect more people by preventing TV spread than you ever would with a gun in your hand it's business as usual but in the spring of 1939 the low hum possible war is much louder now we'll get through it all of us [Music] together just a reminder that all creatures great and small airs on Sunday starting in January at 900 p.m. Eastern Standard time but check your local listing today we are here to speak with Ben vanstone The Mastermind behind the adaptation of the ever popular all creatures great and small by English veterinarian and author Alf white who used the pen name James Harriet well we want to thank our library partners for joining us today as well as numerous PBS stations across the country but most importantly we'd like to thank all of you for being here today so now the moment you've been waiting for we are here with Ben vanstone Ben vanstone is the lead writer and executive producer of all creatures great and small for Masterpiece on PBS he's currently writing and showrunning season 4 prior to that Ben wrote and co-executive produced the English game for Netflix Ben created and is showrunning the a series adaptation of a more toll novel a gentleman in mosal for E1 Showtime starring Yen McGregor which is currently in production welcome Ben hell nice to see you great to see you Ben you know what it is so great to have you back on the show we first got to meet before this even aired season one aired in the states and um you know now it's a complete hit um I imagine you're a bit of celebrity everywhere quite go that far no um no I'm not on Twitter or anything like that either so I don't really have much of a a profile I don't know I mean I I'm you know America we love all creatures great and small and I am so excited to jump into this and I just want to congratulate you for all of your tremendous successes thank you I can't believe it's been that we spoke before the first one went out it seems really more recent than that it's certainly does um you know I know most people now have seen at least one episode of all creatures great and small or have um read or heard but what I realized is um not everyone actually has and so I'm hoping since you have so much experience of this in your own words if you could just summarize what is the premise for those people who maybe don't know of all creatures great and small well all creatures great and small is the story of um a veterinarian James Harriet who moves to Yorkshire Dales and joins uh a fellow vet secri faran in this sort of Helter Skelter unconventional family um a vets and a housekeeper Mrs Hall who keeps all the men folk in check and yeah it's story about sort of love life Humanity um and sort of nature as well and the of the the good we can do in the world I would say is a a good way to sum it up that's beautiful um for people who want to catch up on all creatures great and small season one and two can be can be streamed at pbs.org on passport or also check your local listings because I know a lot of the the PBS stations across the country are working to make sure you catch up before season 3 at airs so season two it ended with the war looming uh James Harriet Mary and Helen where do you plan to take us in season three and what is your inspiration so season three starts with well with that end point of season 2 is the sort of The Proposal with Helen and James um and uh at Christmas the sort of suggestion that there might be War coming on the horizon we s of rejoined the gang 1939 James and Helen are about to get married but the the war starts to loom ever sort of Greater on the horizon and through the series we sort of feel how our characters are digesting that and what they intend to do in response to the the threat of warc coming as well as sort of the usual stories about you know caring for animals and each other um but alongside there is this Dark Cloud on the horizon which will come to a point uh of decision I would say for all our characters come the end of the SE series does James harriets uh his original books are they still very much your Touchstone for the work that you're doing yeah always always it always starts with the books um Alf white who's the you know the the real uh Name Behind the author James Harriet um wrote these fantastic stories and they're not just sort of vignettes of um of how he cared for the animals he also sort of touches on um those wider historical points as well um so yeah we we always use the books both for the animal stories but also for the the sense of what James's life will be as well through the stories and are there any significant animal stories that stand out to you in season three yeah I mean there's one I love particularly which is a um a story about SE freed and a horse which he bonds with very closely and he has to um um yeah without giving too much away he sort of works with the horse to to make it better um and in doing so maybe sort of helps himself a bit too um that's one of my favorite stories which is episode three of the series um so that one's that one's great there's there's loads of great ones through it um they've all sort of got out my mind right now but there's plenty of lovely stories oh there's a brilliant there's a brilliant one from the book as well with um uh a cat and an owner who doesn't particularly want to pay and the cat is um it's a rather Troublesome Troublesome cat and sort of fans of the books will will definitely spot that one um in believe that's episode three as well actually that is a certainly a fun story so the world you've crafted is a series that is watched by intergenerational family Ames right you have grandmothers and and parents and kids and I'll say that I in advance of of this interview I was watching season 3 and I have a six-year-old at home and she turned to me in the middle and she said I just love watching this show Mom and it was so very dear and I I was wondering you know first of all your show there's humor there's love there's joy but do you find it a challenge that you know there's this varied audience out there and you're kind of I don't want to say you have to be a crowd pleaser but it is hard to kind of appeal to all ages what struggles maybe do you encounter with that yeah I mean I think it's it's is difficult it's not like we sort of can go you know it's not like a murder mystery or something like that where you just invent more plot it's all about character and heart and warmth and joy but it it right from the Inception you know working very closely with the team at playground Melissa Galant in particular I think she prefers M Melissa Gallant than Galant but I sometimes call her that um we sort of decided on the tone of the show and wanting to make it something that's accessible for um for you know the whole family not just sort of kids not just adults um yeah so it was always AR it's I actually love doing it I mean it's the same when I I've worked on Merlin as well which was another show which was watched by all the family and and though it's hard when you hit that sort of that sort of um sweet spot and and are able to deliver something which everyone could enjoy I think it's really rewarding it's a sort of Telly I grew up watching and I want to repeat um my I've got a daughter who's eight and unfortunately she won't watch it because daddy did it so it's sort of she deliberately nags me on that one well I think that's what kids do but she probably watch it when she's older and the the best part will be at school when one of her friends watches it yeah well let's wait and see yeah her teacher her teacher watched it and um yeah she she was she's very happy to be proud of that but she still tell me she won't watch it Daddy because it's boring because you wrote it I I understand what the work I do for sure and having kids all ages but they still it's it's always a struggle it's your parents you know yeah well talking about tensions uh and and yes there are lots of interpersonal family tensions and we'll get to them in a second but you know there's this underlying tension that you get right in the beginning of season 3 you start to feel and it's really you know England is on the brink of war and you you see from the very beginning James is struggling with this immense sense of Duty right like you can you can just see he always is this guy who does the right thing um can you share about some of the choices that you made in the screenplay as James was struggling with this intense sense of Duty and doing the right thing and kind of what that internal conflict was yeah I mean it's it's really interesting and and um felt very excuse me relatable and truthful and the idea that sort of you know in in this period in in England when the war was looming um because of experiences in the first world war when all the men just went off to war and there weren't men left at home to do crucial jobs um there were certain professions that were protected um like you know in the second world war which was you know a vet certain Farmers um doctors people who were needed in the country were protected from having to serve in the army or you know Air Force Navy um and vets were one of those professions that were wouldn't have to serve so I thought it's was a really interesting position for a character who's um does have such a sense of Duty and and feels like they want to always do the right thing but they're actually told that they don't have to um and then it becomes a very interesting choice for that character and how they how they decide what's the best thing for themselves the country for family um so it was placing James into that sort of really interesting situation right from the off and then playing that out through the relationships of the other characters um to its you know to where we end up at the end and he's also right newly married he's a new partner in a practice in a vet practice and it is clear he is needed throughout Yorkshire deals by all of his important work because Sig fra is taking less of an active role on the ground um so I how were you I mean I guess you you really answered this but I I feel like that ability to have this character way the these um these heavy choices but I have a personal question for you is have you ever struggled with this this challenge of a sense of Duty to family like I remember when I took an acting class right and they talked about you needed like to think inside and pull it like did you go through that as you were writing the script or how did you think through how you were going to communicate that sense yeah I've never had to have anything on that level before I mean I think it's always difficult when you work on a project on a show um I'm away from family at the moment and that sort of wanting to do serve the the work and also being be with the family is a constant sort of split and struggle um but this it was more I think that you know we were still writing this when when Russia invaded Ukraine um and that had that had quite a profound impact on on what we were doing and and kind of thinking about um made it seem very real for for in Europe there's not been anything like that on that sort of scale for you know probably since the second world war that there's been a sense of this of a of a power of a force that is going through Europe and seeing sort of ordinary Ukrainian people signing up to fight and to defend themselves defend their Homeland felt very very relatable to to the the story we were telling with James um and it yeah it was I mean there there's a moment in our story actually as well we have a sort of um there's an evacuation period in Britain where the children from the towns to protect them from any bombings they leave and go to the countryes so we had some um some kids you know coming from from Halifax and Hull they come out to the orire Dales in our in our series and we see them um but just on the day we were filming there was actually a school with us um that just came to watch the local school and they had several Ukrainian refugees with them so it felt like this story that we were telling that felt very distant and from the past suddenly felt very very real especially for sort of the actors there sort of seeing it all and and then knowing that there sort of these these these two children who had come from from Ukraine uh watching us sort of repeat sort of you know tell the story from 60 years ago so it was yeah it didn't take that much imagination this one actually it was um very real yeah that's incredible well hopefully my next question won't seem as real um TB so my question is about um in season 3 there's this this new strain of uh tuberculosis that is spreading among the local cows yeah um how serious of a problem was this during the time yeah it was a really serious problem and and that there was milk was sort of being infected with tuberculosis and that would then that would kill people and um the farmers um uh weren't didn't you know they were just getting ways of testing for TB and eradicating it um and a lot of that was to do with quarantine finding animals that that had tuberculosis and isolating them and and sort of um killing them off to kill the spread of the disease um so it was a it was a big problem in the in in the countryside not just in the UK I think in in numerous countries um probably all countries around the world and so in this series James sort of heads up a a TB testing program which he's trying to encourage local farmers to take part in is quite a divisive um new uh sort of um thing which they're trying to sort of bring to the farmers because you know the farmers don't really understand that they're going to just lose their animals and the compensation they get paid isn't quite what the animals worth so they need some persuading that it's for the greater good so you sort of have a intersection of those two stories with James sort of sense of Duty to the nation by you know should he serve or should he not but at the same time he's almost trying to answer that question himself by by taking on this new new role and new testing which will really have tangible effects in in sort of helping the spread of tuberculosis um and that was another story which kind of you know we were sort of with Corona virus is still going on we were telling this story about having to isolate and quarantine and you know it's sort of affecting everyone across the community game which again felt very close to home actually um I will say right you create this character I believe it's the minister of Agriculture is that who who it is a very difficult man yeah that's actually James Harriet that's a real that's a character from the book okay so I I need to ask I mean it almost bordered on comical right because the immense amount of forums that needed to be filled out which is that is that true I mean yeah that that's verbatim from James herro's book that scene with um which is so BR brilliant play by Adrien rins who is just wonderful that that character is um yeah that's that's that's from the book and that's very real I mean I you know James Harriet may have had some dramatic license um but it was really funny so we we went with what he wrote on that one um that's the thing about these books that he creates these wonderful characters idiosyn idiosyncratic characters which which AR based in real people that he knew and met and worked with um so yeah that that one's all James that one so did James are alha get any um push back or neg do you know if he encountered when he wrote some of this stuff did he get any um negative I yeah I know initially he wrote them tried to keep it wanted it to be anonymous but um I believe and you need to speak to Jim White his son about this who who's a wonderful Rak Ander as well so he would he's well worth talking to if you can um he I think I remember him saying that people figured it out and then he was um the thing that that sort of his sort of the the real life SE freed was a man called Donald Sinclair and um Donald didn't didn't really appreciate or believe he was quite like the SE freed in the books um but everybody who knew Donald would say that Donald Sinclair was much much worse than the SEC from the book and that's how Jim tells it anyway but yeah he you should talk to Jim he's he's wonderful he's got so many stories I'm sure he does and he's probably a great Storyteller than like his father because I I feel yeah so sik freed uh he is struggling in this in this series with his War experiences yeah um and after watching um this series I I poked around a little bit and I learned that 8 million horses perished as a result of World War II and it seemed that some of the work we see um as sik freed has flashbacks to the war deals with him saving horses and you know is this right from the book too this is accurate of what happened and also yeah yeah that's not it's it's not that's not a that's not from the books actually that's sort of um it it was World War I and our SE freed is slightly older than the the SE freed from the books um which which we did for a number of reasons it always felt to us that that that the family should almost be you know the SE freed and Mrs Hall and then the two kids feel like Tristan and James and so we we wanted a bit of dis difference in that age um so our secret is slightly older which meant he served in World War I um and we created this backstory for him that you know secr has always had this attachment to horses and seen as a bit of a Horseman um so we sort of created this story that he was in charge of the care of horses from World War I um and we did the research and looked into you know him being sort of in the animal veterinary Corp um so that's where that story came from is hinted at in uh episode I want to say episode three series one um but my memory might not be correct I think it's on Dante um and see reveals a little bit of his backstory then um and yeah we did some more research into that and found out that you know not only were these horses taken across to help serve with the men um pulling guns carriages you know ammunition right to the front line um as the war sort of continued and more and more mechanization came in that they almost became obsolete um and it's sort of they all these horses which which the UK England and irelanders had sent spent money sending them over um and didn't really see the value in bringing them back um and a lot of them were were sold off and they were sort of um I think they were used for some were just sort of I think just put down um and I think they were they were used as feed as well um I think both animals and and people I believe um which is you know pretty it's pretty harsh gruesome story but and one that's left SE freed with quite a lot of guilt and a sense of um you know that he let them down I suppose um and I feel that he's always been trying to make it up to horses since and that's why where his great love for them comes from um and I think it's left its mark on him as well not just what happened with the horses but also with the soldiers and and what he saw out there as well no I that's all you know it comes through the weight that it it plays ons freed as a character or just how heavy it is and and obviously um it was something I was unaware of I I think movies have been made about war horses but I I hadn't seen them and so I was learning a lot about what happened during World War I and just the you know I think even America and uh the United States and Canada were even sending horses over to Europe to try to help and just the the immense expense then at the end of the word to try to figure out what to do was was part of the the quandry but I I don't think that makes it any easier for someone who's a vet um and you know has worked so much to keep these horses who are like soldiers right Al alive in some way so um I want to reset the conversation so for people who are just joining us I'm Heather montia you were watching PBS books and I'm so lucky to be here with Ben vanstone who um has written the well all the series but is a lead writer for season three of all creatures great and small which will air on PBS on Masterpiece so welcome back well um we want to get into a little bit about interpersonal relationships which seem to play a very important role in season three not only um with obviously sik freed and how he's you know interacting with everyone in his house he he does um makes some surprising gestures which then he even struggles with um but then we also have Helen who really has she's a new a new wife she's in a new space um so she's kind of her relationship with her father her sister with with Sig freed with Tristan with James with Mrs Hall it's all different um and I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about her as a character your development of her and if there is something that stands out because she's a strong character throughout all this series but espe one yeah Helen's great I love Helen um it's really interesting with Helen became a wife to her or certainly a housewife to her dad at a very young age when her mom passed away so she was sort of already in charge of the cooking the cleaning the running of the farm you know making sure food was on the table as well as actually being an active worker on the farm so she was kind of doing so much already um and marriage in a very strange way I think is slightly freed her of that I mean unlike conventionally I suppose a woman in that time getting married would be sort of go into the house and become more of a housekeeper and a and uh um you know putting food on the table for the husband but with Helen's marriage she's marrying into a house where there's already a Mrs Hall who runs the house so and she no longer has to do all these things for her father so she suddenly liberated a little bit um and has to kind of work out what she wants to do with her life and what she's going to you know how her relationship with her sister changes as well because she's she's no longer a mother and she's no longer you know looking after her father every day she's still wants to work on the farm but at the same time she wants to be in a life with her husband James as well so she sort of pulled between those two two worlds she's got one foot left in the world of um hon gra but also she needs to transition into the world of scale house I think this series very much sees Helen evolve from the the sort of the The Farmers Wife in in vertic commas um that she was to uh a full member of scale house um but just as she's doing that there's a danger of James being pulled away in this sort of world that she's you know she gave up her life to marry James and to move into scale house and now it might look like he's pulled away which hardly seems fair to her you know which is a completely fair point of view so you know she she's sort of discovering who she is and what she wants as a married woman and at the same time once she has discovered that trying to hold on to it so it's a really inter in Journey for H in this series we also see her hidden talents that I don't know if we fully knew about before she's good at math and accounting but isn't allowed to do it so much um and I sometimes I really um admired her and her tact in how she she was trying to navigate her place and space is that all directly from the book um or you've you've crafted it and sewn yeah I think that all the seeds are in the book I think that you know Helen is um very aware of SE Frey's foibles and how she has to sort of s of tap dance around him to um not completely upset the apple cart and at the same time sort of not expect too much of Mrs Hall but also come to love the fact that Mrs Hall is who she is and she will always run that house um so it's it's yeah she she's very I think that Helen's probably the smartest one of the lot um I think she sort of is very very clever at sort of working out um exactly what's going on and I I love her and Mrs Hall together as well I think they're a they're a great sort of Team those to so I want to talk a little bit about sibling relationships which comes out in different ways right so you have Helen and her younger sister and then you have S and Tristan and you have a clear throughout tensions of of these relationships and and they really are are per percolating throughout this this uh Series this season especially could you speak a little bit to those and inspiration behind them I mean I think I think the the seek free trist relationship in particular well I mean it's actually very similar to the to the Helen Jenny relationship in that they're both they siblings but there's also a parental role and how those two different roles come into conflict and make their life very difficult the you know I I feel that the the SE free Tristan relationship um I think is uh it's probably my favorite thing to write it's a thing which I probably relate to most uh my relationship my father when I was younger was not always um PL sailing and I think there's a that sort of crackling tension always exists between SE freed and trist and they can never sort of fully resolve um their feelings to one another and uh you know srey took on responsibility for his little brother at a time when he didn't really want to and Tristan didn't want his big brother becoming his dad and so that sort of underlying tension just just keeps keeps working and working and I don't think they'll ever change it's sort of like those those family occasions that we I think we can all relate to where no matter how many years have gone past you still slip back into those those old habits with one another and I think that there's particular is a bit of an old habit I think Jenny and Helen I think it's a a little bit more hope for them um I think that they are because they're closer in age and I think that that they are closer as sisters um as well before the sort of the before Helen became um Jenny's sort of de facto mother um and I think also that Helen has a sort of Greater emotional intelligence to be able to deal with that and accept that her younger sister is changing and that her younger sister might not want to do the and be the person who um Helen particular wanted her to be she might have different ideas and Helen's much better at accepting Jenny for who she is than SE freed is with Tristan I would say I think seed um thinks Tristan should just do exactly what he says and can't quite understand why he doesn't and and those are all real aspects of Life yeah as someone who is an older sister of of of someone who's nine years younger and also you know the show thinking about some of the interpersonal relationships it definitely um was gave me reason to pause I enjoyed Tristan I would say the most in this season hands down from all the seasons he seems to be maturing really coming into his own um from being a whiz at making potatoes to to you know um you know buying a car like out of out of nowhere um that makes so many noises but at least runs um I I really you know you made him tremendously likable and and I want to know like it seems like you really enjoy enjoy him as a character as well so can you talk a little bit just as Tristan the character who is is going through maturity and really looking for himself yeah I think that you know Tristan sort of the overbearing nature of secreet has almost landed Tristan into something of an Arrested Development I feel like he sort of um has never been able to find out who he is because secre is always telling him who he is and this series we start to see again with the war sort of bringing all of this into context and you know he starts to think about who he really is and what he really wants because in the past he's only just done the things he thinks he's supposed to do rather than what he wants to do and that's made him be a bit sort of shallow at times or you know be you know more interested in the instant gratification rather than thinking more long term about what he may want from life and I really enjoyed this series seeing the beginnings of Tristan becoming a man and I think becoming taking responsibility for himself and growing as a person I feel like he's sort of done with you know messing around and trying to to shk on things to you know do the least amount possible he sort of realized that he you know to get something out he's got to put a bit more in I think we is one of the lines from the I think that's said to him by someone in this this series and um yeah I really I really love how he's evolved and and Callum as well in his performance brings so much to it he's he's so um clever in how he's able to do the very flippant fun Tristan but actually there's a there's a real sort of um vulnerability under there as well and uh sort of a real heart to that character so Mrs Hall another character who I feel is really coming out uh into her own more so we learn more about her relationship with her son um I feel like there's a pivotal moment that we we see we experience as viewers um why is it important I mean these are James Harriet wrote a lot right so every choice you make to include something lets lets me as a viewer know that that you've made a conscious decision so some of the stories about Mrs Hall why did you choose those stories and why why were they important to the narrative yeah Mrs Hall um I think that she she's probably the character where we've had to do the most amount of invention from the books she's sort of she's very slight in the books in terms of she's occupying the role of housekeeper um for us I thought it was much more interesting to sort of build out that character and flesh it out and and this year we learn a little bit more about her story I think she is on a journey you know um where you know she's a woman that's had some trouble in her past and her sort of emancipation from that and growth we will see um over the course course of of many series uh so this year it felt really important to pick up on a story that started in series one regarding um Mrs Hall and her son Edward who we understand she's not seen for for many years and it's estranged from um and and this this series it felt like you know with the context of of war and what's going on with everyone else's familyes interpersonal relationship and you know the with you know seek freed and Tristan and and Helen and Jenny that s of it was another sort of um parent child story which we wanted to explore um and yeah it felt very right to bring Edward in the series well you've mentioned already that um Jim White is um Alf White's son and you've spoken with him and I was wondering if you could talk about a little bit if there were any stories that he shared or things he shared that surprised you um or or something that just stood out that maybe didn't stand in the book as much until he shared his aspect or his perspective it was I mean the one that he he's told me was the the one that s really brings seek freed into sharp Focus which is that he um you know that he'd uh there once a dinner party that sea food was out first there was two that he um he brought a horse to a dinner party he he was looking after a horse um and he didn't want to leave it on its own so he and he had this engagement as just sort of fancy dinner party but instead of just sort of you know staying at home with a horse or leaving the horse he took the horse with him to dinner um because he wanted to have it there to check on it um and another dinner party story where I think this was when he was trying to give up smoking and the guests wouldn't leave they everyone just carried on chattering and um so he fired a load of shotgun into into the wall and blew a hole in the wall to get everyone to shut up and leave um he was that sort of extremer character that he did things like that and as soon as I sort of heard that story I was able to realize that nothing I could write was would ever be too big it would you know we had license then to really go for it well that's fun those are those are stories to know for sure um so when you were commissioned to write season 3 you were also commissioned to write season four is that correct yeah yeah it's correct yeah we're off and running so what did that create any challenges you know or did it make it easier and in terms of writing season 4 and storyboarding and showrunning you know do you think about season five too like how does how does that work what's your yeah I mean we it's always nice to know that there's a job to come back to so um yeah I think it creates a lot of security for for everyone to know okay we're doing season three and four and allows you to plan across those I think that we we've you know sort of looked further ahead for all our characters there's an end game for a lot of those stories um they that you know may not be for two or three series and we might not have worked out what every beat is of those stories um but we do plan ahead there's you know we've we've plenty more in the bank Beyond sort of series 4 um in terms of uh where we want those characters to go so yeah it's it's always nice to know you've got another series it's it doesn't mean that we're not planning already for f you know further ahead and do you have a I mean you are a creative you're a writer do you have a Crea creative habit or process that you engage in yeah I've got I'm big big on routines like I I've got to do sort of the same things every day and sort of leave the house the same time every day gets the office every day and just sort of have a yeah pretty strict regimen if I if ever that sort of falls apart then I my writing goes off a bit as well because um I need to I need to have that regular sort of um yeah routine so I think that my creative process is quite boring it's it's it requires a lot of just sitting down and writing um but yeah I try not to change too much I I will I'll kind of try and set myself targets of how much I want to reach a day and if I reach it early I'll try and I'll stop if I you know if I don't reach it you know I do try and keep normal hours but yeah on the days it works well you know have give yourself a bit of a break do something else um for the days when it doesn't go well do you end up when they're shooting the the the series are you on set no not all the time no no but you sometimes are sometimes but with covid as well you kind of don't want too many people on set you we've sort of got used to doing a lot of things via Zoom um and trying to keep the numbers of people around sets to a minimum I don't know if that you know that may well change in in the future as sort of covid becomes less and less of a um a problem but it's it's still a problem for a great deal of people even if majority of people are fine so um yeah I wasn't on set very much for Series 3 um but yeah who who knows what what will happen in the future so if there is one takeaway from season 3 you want viewers to take what is that takeaway gosh well uh God that's a really good question I don't know really just to you know look after each other I guess seem pretty simple but there's you know when there's a lot of big things in the world it's the ones you sort of close to that matter most I suppose um those are great lessons for life so Ben thank you so much for this uh we can't wait for January 8th to begin to watch all creatures great and small season three so thank you for being with us you're you know you are such um a really wonderful writer we are so lucky to have you not only on the show but as you know have you writing for Masterpiece for all creatures great and small and and um thank you for your time pleasure it's a real pleasure thank you for having me and enjoy the show thank you I'm Heather Marie Monte we want to remind everyone out there please tune in to All Creatures Great and Small January 8th at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and until next time happy reading [Music]