The Archers

The Archers is a BBC radio soap opera… it’s tag-line used to be ‘the every-day story of country folk’ and its main aim was to inform farmers and others who work on the land or live in the country about the latest information from ‘the ministry’ whichever ministry it was in those days. In those days… the Archers started properly in 1951 although it was piloted the year before; it is set in the fictional village of Ambridge, through which flows the River Am, and it is located in Borsetshire… an imaginary county which is roughly in the West Midlands.  The main characters is the Archer family… starting originally with Dan Archer and his sons Phil and Jack who both died many years ago, so it is now their descendants. There are many other families either distantly related to the Archer clan, or people who live in the village. As with all soap operas there are all sorts of story-lines, some more realistic than others, and there is still reference to farming and farming issues.

Recently listeners have been recounting how long they have been listening for… I started listening in a haphazard way because my Aunty Audrey was a listener, and whenever I stayed with her when I was a little girl. I became familiar with the characters, but I didn’t listen apart from when I was with my aunty. When I went to Manchester Polytechnic there was no student accommodation, we had to find out own places to live; in those days the sort of flats and bedsits available for rent didn’t have TV so we became firm listeners to the BBC and that was when I began to listen properly… and I still do! There have been times when the plot line became so ridiculous that I couldn’t bear to listen to the actual episodes, but I continued to follow it through reading synopses… But I’m back into the swing now… and I’m listening even as I type!