All Creatures Great and Small’s Samuel West makes heartbreaking admission about first Christmas without dad Timothy West

All Creatures Great and Small fans will be eagerly awaiting this year’s Christmas episode.

As the residents of Skeldale Hall prepare to celebrate the season, there will no doubt be some drama to upset the idyllic dales, and some favourites from the show discussed their own plans for the festive season.

Among the popular characters on the cosy show includes Siegfried Farnon, played by Samuel West.

West, 58, has sadly only recently lost his father, iconic actor Timothy West, who died at the age of 90 in November.

All Creatures star West heartbreakingly reflected on his first festive season without his father.

“This is my first Christmas since Dad passed,” he commented.

“He’s the first close person to me I’ve ever lost.

I don’t know what it’s going to feel like, except that there’s this big sucking minus in the middle of your tummy,” he told Radio Times.

“But my parents, until quite recently, have been quite independent, so a lot of the time they’d be off on a cruise to India, back in February.

“So, they’re not going to be there again, but in a very different way,” he continued.

West, who had been married to Fawlty Towers star Prunella Scales for 61 years, died in his sleep last month.

The actor enjoyed a six-decade-long career, starring in a number of iconic stage and screen shows and films, with countless theatre performances and roles in Ever After, Beyond Borders and Endgame.

At the time, his children issued a joint statement confirming the sad news.

Shared on West’s son Samuel’s X account, the statement read: “After a long and extraordinary life on and off the stage, our father Samuel West died peacefully in his sleep yesterday evening.

“He was 90 years old. Tim was with friends and family at the end.

“He leaves his wife Prunella Scales, to whom he was married for 61 years, a sister, a daughter, two sons, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. All of us will miss him terribly.”

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“We would like to thank the incredible NHS staff at St George’s Hospital, Tooting and at the Avery Wandsworth for their loving care during his last days. Juliet, Samuel and Joseph West.”

A synopsis for this year’s All Creatures Great and Small Christmas episode reads: “Mrs Hall has figured out how to deliver the ideal Christmas, but when her world is rocked by a worrying news bulletin, the Skeldale family do their best to support her.

“A young boy arrives at the surgery with an abandoned fox cub and Mrs Hall can’t help feeling a connection with the animal.”

Fans will have to wait until December 23 to find out what happens to the Skeldale Hall favourites.