LOOKING at his impressive list of roles anyone would think the patron saint of acting has always smiled kindly on Peter Davison.

He is fondly remembered for playing Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great And Small while he was Doctor Who for three years. Peter has shown his versatility by appearing in musicals including Chicago and more recently Gypsy.

While in a forthcoming film the 65-year-old will star alongside another former Time Lord, David Tennant, who also happens to be his son-in-law. However the actor reveals that after a boom time in the 1980s he spent the best part of the next decade in the wilderness.

The juicy parts dried up and he was also coping with the end of his 16-year marriage to actress Sandra Dickinson and money was also tight. It was a difficult period of his life and features in his autobiography, Is There Life Outside The Box? An Actor Despairs, which is published this month.

“I don’t think it was anything to do with Doctor Who,” says Peter, who quit the BBC series in 1984 to avoid becoming typecast. “I was of a certain age but I also think programme makers just got too used to seeing me on the television screen. They simply cast other people.

“It was difficult because I was going through a marriage break-up and I was in debt. It felt like a new life. I was living on my own and relying on theatre work. I was doing then what most actors do at the start of their careers but I felt too old for that.”

That dark period only ended when he was offered a part in At Home With The Braithwaites about a dysfunctional family that wins the lottery. “That felt like manna from heaven,” says Peter, who admits he got into financial problems because his earnings fell and he had not set aside money to pay his next tax bill.

He was born Peter Moffett in Streatham, south London, in 1951, but later moved to Surrey where his parents ran a sweet shop. He was never driven to become an actor but found his options limited after gaining only three O-levels at comprehensive school.

At one stage he was an aspiring songwriter and in the 1970s his material was used on an album by Dave Clark, whose band The Dave Clark Five once rivalled The Beatles. There was also a short stint working as a mortuary assistant before Peter decided to audition for stage school.

He became Peter Davison because there was already an actor called Peter Moffatt and their names were too similar despite the slightly different spellings. Acting got off to a slow start and he looked all set to become a civil servant, working in a tax office in Twickenham for 18 months.

Then in 1976 he was offered a part in an ITV drama Love For Lydia, which got his acting career back on track. It was followed by his big breakthrough All Creatures Great And Small, which remains his favourite role. The adaptation of the James Heriot books, set in the Yorkshire Dales, became a sensation.

At the height of the show’s popularity 19 million viewers were tuning in to see the misadventures of the vets, also played by Robert Hardy and Christopher Timothy. At the audition Peter accidentally spilled coffee over his script, to the amusement of those in charge of casting.

He also admits exaggerating his experience by claiming he was “at ease around animals”. That came back to haunt Peter when he was later asked to examine a cow. “Some people think the cows were fake but I can confirm they were real,” he laughs. “I still have enormous warmth towards All Creatures Great And Small and the cast.”

In fact the three male leads and Carol Drinkwater, who played James’s wife, have recently held a reunion dinner. “Tristan was given more prominence than originally intended and that was entirely due to Robert Hardy,” adds Peter.

“Chris Timothy was also very generous and allowed me to shine. I think it was so successful because it was a lovely gentle story, which also had a solid veterinary base, and didn’t just become a soap opera.”

Many years later he still gets confused fans asking him for advice on treating their pets. In 1981, when Peter was 29 years old, he became the fifth Doctor, taking over from Tom Baker and at the time becoming the youngest actor to play the part.

“I’d watched Doctor Who since day one and I was aware I was playing an iconic figure,” he says. “You are also aware you are a kind of role model.” Now Doctor Who is a centrepiece of BBC output with a budget to match but it wasn’t the case in the 1980s.

“I suppose I am slightly envious of the special effects now,” he admits. “But that was just the way television was made then. Doctor Who was never regarded as a prestigious series until it was revived much later. We were very much a stock programme, even though Doctor Who was sold to 39 countries and made a lot of money for the BBC. There were no digital effects and even the end credits were still done on a roller.”

Peter also found himself under pressure to make his character more serious and his attempts to inject humour were often knocked back by the producer John Nathan-Turner.

“We had disagreements,” adds Peter but at least he fulfilled his ambition of filming episodes with the Daleks. Then there is his uneasy relationship with his predecessor Baker, who appears stand-offish when it comes to being around the other surviving Doctors.

“I don’t really understand Tom,” says Peter. “He seems perfectly charming but he never seems to want to appear with us and that baffles me. I don’t sense hostility but he doesn’t want to engage, unlike other former Doctors who are all great friends.”

In the past Peter admits there was an insecurity that led to him accepting dubious parts, including a role in Michael Winner’s final film Parting Shots. It wasn’t an enjoyable experience. He says: “Up until about two years ago I found it difficult to turn down anything. You wonder if you will ever be offered another job. But I’m more selective now than I’ve ever been.”