Woman's Hour - Woman's Hour celebrates the women of The Archers

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

It's 75 years to the day since The Archers first launched. Woman's Hour has come to Ambridge to celebrate the female characters who have helped this programme tackle some of the most challenging, contentious and sensitive issues affecting women.Nuala McGovern is joined in The Archers studio at BBC Birmingham by writer Sarah Hehir, Dr Cara Courage from Academic Archers, who studies the social history behind the programme, Sunny Ormonde, who plays Lilian Bellamy, and we also hear from Emerald O'Hanrahan, who plays Emma Grundy. Times columnist and long time fan of The Archers Libby Purves shares a condensed history of the women of Ambridge. Nuala also gets a behind the scenes tour from Felicity Finch, who plays Ruth Archer, and Technical Producer Vanessa Nuttall.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Simon Richardson

Good morning and happy new year. Welcome to a special New Year's Day edition of Woman's Hour, marking 75 years to the day since The Archers, the world's longest running continuing drama was launched. Yes, Woman's Hour has come to Ambridge, the village where the Archers is set, or at least as close as anyone can get to it in real life. We are here in the Archer's studio at BBC's Birmingham offices in the mailbox.

Over the next hour, we'll be celebrating the female characters who have helped this programme tackle some of the most challenging, contentious and sensitive issues affecting women in Britain, allowing generations of listeners to hear their own lives reflected back at them. Now, we're not live today, but you can join the conversation on social media. It's at BBC Women's Hour. Or you can email us through our website. Check out our Instagram, where you can watch a snippet of my studio tour with Felicity. Finch, who plays Ruth Archer, the full tour coming up later this hour.

But right now, I'm joined in Studio 9D at BBC Birmingham by Archer's scriptwriter, Sarah Heher. Hello, good morning. Good to have you with us. Dr. Cara Courage, also with us from Academic Archers, who studies the social history behind the program. Good morning. And with me are two of the actors who embody these lives every week. Sunny Ormond, who plays Lillian Bellamy. Good morning darlings

And on the line we have Emerald O'Hanrahan who plays Emma Grundy Good morning, hi Later we're also going to hear from Times columnist and lifelong fan of the drama That's Libby Purvis, she is one of Manny Well first of all, I want to get to know this place What is it like for a woman who is living here? Sarah, let me start with you, can women thrive in Ambridge? Yeah, I think they can.

I mean, I guess the women in Ambridge are living within a patriarchy like we all are. So there are challenges at all stages. But I think they've proved that they can thrive. And often it's to do with how tenacious they are, how creative they are, how fierce and loyal and hardworking they are. But a lot of that comes from what platform we give them, you know, as characters. Yes, indeed. And we're going to get to some of those storylines that have happened

that have shaped the role of women in this village. But it has changed, Cara, over the years. It's definitely changed, and we're seeing a lot more professional roles for women in Ambridge. Ruth Archer would be a case in point of that. She's one of the key archer family women, but she came in as a farmer first and foremost. And we're seeing that with her daughter Pip. Farming for Pip is absolutely a vocation, but it's her career as well. We see across those generations a real change.

Yeah, which there probably would have been questions asked of women coming in as farmers in previous generations. We will be hearing from Ruth Archer, played by Felicity Finch, a little later in the programme. Well, let's meet some of the women of the Archers, Sunny and Emerald. Sunny, let us talk about Lillian. A member of the Archer clan, late 70s, a bit of a bon vivor, perhaps. She must be an awful lot of fun to play. She is. She's the original good-time girl, really, isn't she?

I mean, she's naughty, she's funny, she's witty, she's outrageous. She, I think, says all the things and does all the things that we'd all like to do and say, but really not courageous enough to do. And she loves a large G&T with the village pub. She's part owner as well. You know, she is quite a businesswoman, actually, herself, apart from being a good time gal and liking a chap on her arm. I mean, she's developed a lot over the 25 years that I've been playing her. You know, she clacks around in her stilettos, but she's a very strong woman. I want to also learn a little bit about Emma Grundy Emerald. She's in her 40s. And how would you describe how life has been to her? I would describe it as not very kind. The archers are sort of the haves,

the grundies are the have-nots. Emma has married into their family and struggles. They struggle with poverty and they struggle with the class system that is so evident in the village, so invisible and so there. I think she's made some poor choices, but only some of that she's brought on herself. You mentioned their class, for example, and Emma and Lillian, who sunny plays, exist in such different circumstances. So let's talk a little bit about how class impacts the lives of women in Ambridge. And of course, what happens in Ambridge can happen across the UK as a whole. Emerald, in 2019, Emma and her partner Ed's mortgage application. vacation failed. So this was considered a defining moment. They'd worked so hard to get on the

property ladder, they realized they couldn't afford to buy a home in their own village. How would you describe the impact that HUD on the character of Emma? Yeah, that was massive, actually. It was a big turning point. She'd spent years. She was working different jobs. One of them was in a chicken factory, packing chickens that she would go to in the night after finishing her jobs as a cleaner and in a cafe. And they had the mortgage agreed and everything, they'd worked so hard they were going to live in this aspirational new development

and finally have the house and be legitimate. And then to lose that, I think she had a bit of a nervous breakdown in the week leading up to that. She went round the village asking everyone, including Lillian, for money. And I don't think she's ever really recovered from that. But I think it's that, that loss of that possibility

and the realization that really it was the loss of her relationships that hurt her the most. She's very like her mother. Her mother is Susan Carter, who is very aspirational, and Emma's got a lot of that. They ended up in a little mobile home in the yard of Grange Farm, where her in-laws live. And if it wasn't for other stuff, she's satisfied with that. And I think that's been a huge development in her character, where she's realized that it's not actually getting the stuff and stretching yourself to be way beyond your capability and your means that matters, you know? Yes, aspirational is one of the words that kind of stuck with me from when you're talking about

that. Carla wants to jump in. Emma was really admonished when she went and asked people for financial help. And it wasn't a huge amount of money, but can you please just get us into this house? And she was really told off. And there was a lot of shame in how people were talking to her and that Emma felt as well. But she's also been told off by people that had done that social climbing already. And they'd really pulled up the drawbridge. And that had to happen in a small village, she knows she sees these people every day, works with them and so on and so forth.

It was a massive burden, shame for her to carry. It really impacted her. Lillian, she has friends from lots of different backgrounds, doesn't she, Sunny? Do you think there's something unique about Ambridge? Because we're talking about some of the cracks that can be there. But what about the glue? Certainly from Lillian's point of view, she is somebody who's live and let live. Yes, I know she's got money, but the family didn't have that originally when her mother ran the pub.

Money came into the family. So she wasn't brought up with a lot of money. Eddie Grundy is one of her best friends. So he is, for those not familiar, get rich, quick scheme obsessed? Yes, he's a rascal. He's a rascal. And she loves rascals. But they went to school together.

She and Eddie, you know, they were probably smoking behind the bike shed. and all that. They are great chums. They drink cider in the cider shed together. But I think from Lillian's point of view, she certainly, she loves colorful characters. She doesn't mind what class they come from. But I think that's the great thing about the community of Ambridge because, you know, we often have the Christmas pantomime. Everybody joins in that.

We have the fruit and veg show, don't we? You know, the whole community does come together. So I want to go back. We're getting like a little bit of kind of the now, but we need to go back. back to the very beginning because 75 years is quite a lot to cover. So we've enlisted the help of a huge fan of the archers and another voice that many people will know is Libby Purvis. We invited Libby to take a delve into the archives of the archers to present us with a condensed history of the women of the programme. Women are the beating, throbbing, dangerous vital heart

of Ambridge. For 75 years, they've kept house, farmed hard, occasionally. gone rogue, but always loomed reassuringly over their men and children. Feminism and sexual freedom have advanced around them, but from the start they found there's a lot you can do with a sharp word or a dose of lemon drizzle. In the beginning, there was Doris, Pillar of post-war England, wife of Dan Archer and mistress of Brookfield Farm. Here she is, putting the bright side of Rab Butler's budget in 1952. Income tax allowances are up and family allowances have gone from five bob to eight bob,

so Jack and Peggy will be pleased about that. And old Walter hasn't got to pay anymore for his pipe or his pint, so he'll be pleased about that. Oh, and now for goodness sake let's talk about something else. Doris and Dan raised three children, Phil and two daughters. Christine, the horsewoman, married twice, once shockingly to a divorced gamekeeper. She liked a quiet life, but things happen in Ambridge.

Christine got firebond held up at gunpoint, then impoverished by a scam in her old age and broke her hip falling over Peggy's awful cat, Hilda. Her brother Jack, on the other hand, was a pub landlord and dedicated boozer, but he had the sense to marry Peggy, who then served over 70 years as a steely matriarch, and ran the pub and prop Jack up until the drink killed him, and then remarried money.

Peggy ruled pub, family and a series of vickers with a rod of iron, but had to watch her three children as they emerged into the sexy and lawless 1960. and beyond. Peggy's daughter Jennifer rebelled, shortened her skirts and had children by three different fathers and two marriages. Lillian, meanwhile, returned widowed for a few years of tax exile to hook up with a married man who was later imprisoned and has now netted another even richer married man. Lillian defends all her archer relatives and even when they're drunk or terminally selfish and entitled stands up for them. She's very happy, as you can tell by the manic laughter.

I don't know what's got into you, lonely. What do you mean? You're so boisterous. Boister's me. Have you been after something? You have, haven't you? I couldn't possibly scorn him. Jennifer did give up extramarital affairs by 40 or so in favour of making more scones

and suddenly showed heroic virtue and her husband admitted to fathering baby Rory with his terminally ill Irish mistress Chavonne. She raised the child herself and was equally heroic when her husband Brian expensively polluted the river Am and they lost their grand house. Her death is deeply mourned, not least by her awful daughters. Alice, who married the farrier in Las Vegas

and is an angry alcoholic in wavering recovery, though she mainly manages to raise her own toddler. Whereas Kate, the hippie wellness freak, gave birth in a tent at Glastonbury, and then shot off to Africa to produce two more, leaving her baby daughter Phoebe with its bemused dad. Here she is explaining why. I'm desperate, Roy.

I can't stay in Ambridge. I really can't. What about Phoebe? It's not right for her to come to. It wouldn't be fair. I realise that now. So you're just going to abandon her? Oh, don't do this to me, Roy.

I know I'm not being a very good mother at the moment. Kate... As one of the reasons I'm going. I've got to find out. about myself if I'm ever going to be even halfway decent as a mum. Meanwhile, in the other branch of the family, Phil married Grace and saw her die in a stable fire on the night ITV opened, which was obviously not a dirty trick by the BBC.

He remarried to Jill, a competent assistant matriarch of the tribe alongside the formidable Peggy, and a serious competitor in the Lemon Drizzle and Scum Arena. Her daughter Shula worked through several affairs and two husbands before swerving to become a vicar up north. Her sister Elizabeth, after a nationally scandalous abortion episode, took over Shula's dumped posh boyfriend Nigel before he fatally fell off the roof with the longest shriek in radio history.

She now manages his stately home in Girlboss style, having paused briefly to break up the marriage of Roy, her cousin Kate's ex-lover, who was left with the dumped baby Phoebe to bring up, keep up at the back, this is complicated. Elizabeth is now shacked up with a local abattoir. tycoon, her daughter Lily, running true to the wild family genes by seducing her married university lecturer, giving him a job in her mum's stately home, then cheating on him, and moving on to be an upmarket kitchen equipment saleswoman. There are, of course, plenty of incomeers by

marriage. Let's not forget David Archer's wife, Ruth, down-to-earth, Geordie, who's soldiered on through breast cancer, and later the foot-and-mouth disaster, sensibly deciding, meanwhile, against an affair with the herdsman. She works like a Trojan, looks after grandchild, and children and now resignedly contemplates her daughter Pip's life. For, after having a baby with an uncommitted friend with benefits, Pip has come out as a happy lesbian. Their youngest son, meanwhile, managed to get the lowly Chelsea Horribin pregnant at a music gig and had a breakdown in shock at this, while she had to have a termination and get back behind the tea shop counter. Chelsea is great. She and Zainab Malik just had a splendid row with a golfer, with a magnificent triple

offensiveness, the man insulted both of them on grounds of sex, class, race and golfing skills. Martin's clearly teaching you all wrong. Here. This is how you should do it. Your hands here and here. Okay, but I'd rather you didn't touch me, thank you very much. I'm showing you how to hold the club correctly. And if I was you, I would dress a little more appropriately next time. This male bad behaviour enabled another long-term non-archer family woman, bossy but good-hearted Linda Snell to tell the man off. You made Chelsea and Zenap feel horribly unwelcome. Well, I don't know why, because I was actually very nice to them.

I offered to buy them a drink. Lawrence, you told Chelsea that you wouldn't touch her with the barge pole. I mean, how is that an appropriate way to speak to anyone? It was a joke. But nobody's laughing. We can't leave out the lately famous woman, although she's hardly in the tough, strong daughters of Doris League. Pat and Tony's daughter Helen.

After anorexia and a drunk driving incident, she invented a new cheese, had a baby by donor insemination, then fell for a married man called Rob, who coercibly controlled her until she stabbed him and stood trial, after being remanded in prison with her baby. Now she's on her second lover since. They don't give up, these ladies. The Archer family of the title stays central, but beyond it more and more, we get glimpses of other women of decided character. Clary at the Dairy, dealing with the complication of having her son,

wife Emma leaving him for her other son, all of them now fretting over grandson George, fresh out of jail, and complicating matters even more by courting an online influencer. See how the decades roll by and every innovation is marked in Ambridge. Then there's Kirsty, jilted by Tom Archer, married for a bit to a cruel gangmaster, a man who was first established as a rather friendly bird-watching builder, but later became known to fans of the show as suddenly evil Philip. Kirstie now rewilds beavers. And there's Usher, the useful lawyer, who married the vicar and brings Diwali to Protestant Ambridge, and Joy from the north, who looked a bit dull, frankly, until her mysterious daughter Rochelle turned out to be an echo terrorist. Let nobody tell you that Archer women lead a peaceful country life. Deep down, these are riot women, the lot of them. A challenge to the great family of female actors who do more to keep the wild plots going than any of the men.

salute them. Well, that was Libby Purvis' celebration of 75 years of women in the Archers in just about seven minutes. The performers were Gwen Berryman as Doris, Harry Oaks, as Dan, Perdita Avery as Kate,

Sonny Ormond, as Lillian, Ian Pepperell playing Roy Tucker, Madeline Leslie as Chelsea Horribin, and Rupert Van Sittart plays Lawrence. Okay, there was a lot there, but Sarah, do you agree with Libby that the Archer's family has a tradition of wild women, riot women, as she says.

Yeah, and I think she's talking about beyond the Archer's family to the whole of Ambridge. Yeah, I think there are some incredible characters, but I found myself wanting to defend some of the characters like they were my own friends and family, even in Libby Purvis's very positive kind of lively summary. Because I wouldn't call Joy Doll. I wouldn't call Chelsea Lowley. I fight the idea that Kate is selfish. And often, you know, when we get the storylines as writers,

you're looking at that and thinking, yeah, they're complicated. But actually they feel real. They feel three-dimensional and they're the best when they're like that. What about that, Kara? Some of the points that Sarah's making, but also with Libby that some of these three-dimensional female characters maybe do more to keep some of the complex plots going. than perhaps the men in the archers going beyond family again.

I think there's some truth in that over academic archers we did a beckdel test. And do you explain what that is? So that's when you look at who women are talking to and what they're talking about. Are they talking to each other? And are they talking about things that men are doing? And we see that in media. It was often used within films, for example, but you're looking at it through an archer's lens. So one of our gang did that to the archers.

And it didn't come up very well. actually, most of the women, when they were talking to each other, a lot of their conversation was about the menfolk, but they're in a family. Of course, they're going to be talking about their brothers, their sons, their husbands, particularly when some of them are quite feckless. And that's quite different to speaking about a man as a love interest. It is, because this is a really enmeshed, knitted, woven, tight-together community and family network that you've got here. And of course, what that reading also doesn't do, though, it kind of, it doesn't show actually that women's power isn't just by being the wife or being

in that domestic realm. It's far more complicated than that. Yes, and domestic you might think something low-key laid back, but instead it can be, of course, explosive and wild. A lot of compelling themes to get our teeth into playing out across generations, marriage, addiction, sisterhood, the legacy of those early matriarchs, one of whom Lillian's mum Peggy was only lost recently. Peggy was portrayed by June Spencer for over 60 years and very much missed. Sennie, what would you say the impact has been of Peggy passing, the impact on Lillian and perhaps also the other women in Ambridge?

First of all, I'd just like to say that Lillian has never made a lemon drizzle cake in her life. Perish the thought. quite frankly, she is not a good cook. A little bit like Ruth, really. But yes, dear June, who played Peggy, yeah. I mean, just her leaving the programme was horrendous and devastating for us all, actually. But from Lillian's point of view, she lost both her mother and her sister in a very short period of time. And actually, what has happened in the last couple of years is that I think Lillian has finally grown up.

I think she hid behind her mother and her sister, who were very maternal. with her and suddenly they're gone and it's been a real sea change for her along with Alice who's the alcoholic niece and she's had to step up to be the mother to Alice and discover the maternal aspects of her personality and I think also you know her father Jack was an alcoholic and her niece is an alcoholic and she herself Lillian likes her G&T we can joke about that but I think what the storyline with Alice did made her realize how close to the edge she could have become herself. And I think, you know, she's become a Tigris with regard to Alice defending her. I love Tigris. That's a great word to use as well as a descriptor. I want to stay

actually on the themes of mothers and motherhood. I want to talk a bit about Emma and her eldest child, George. In recent times he has been, we could say, a troubled young man. Last year he went to prison for a dangerous driving and perverting the course of justice. He's now been released. His difficulties continue. Emerald, what did we learn about Emma as a mother from that episode? Yeah, I think it was always clear to me playing Emma, but I think it's become clear to everyone that George really seems to Emma like an extension of herself. She actually had a line at one point saying, you are me. And the shame that's come out from him going to prison, he confessed. to her the truth about this car crash that he was eventually sent to prison for.

There was quite a few weeks where she kept it a secret what his role really was and that he had sort of framed Alice Lillian's niece. So the shame there has been really uncomfortable, really, really tough. All you can do for now is focus on getting through tonight. There's no point thinking beyond the hearing tomorrow. You don't know what it's like. I thought I had four days left. And it sounds stupid, but I can feel all those four days in my body like weights.

And I just know I can't hold anymore. No, that doesn't sound stupid at all. I feel like I'm carrying those weights with you. But if we have to, we'll find a way to keep going. Me and you are strong. We'll get through this. And before you know it, we'll have to. you home and safe.

That was Angus Stoby playing George and Emerald O'Hanran playing Emma. It's really interesting you talk about that extension of oneself. I'm actually remembering an interview I did with Robin Wright, the actor, and she told me about going to therapy not that long ago

to try and be able to distance herself a little bit from her children. She says it worked as well, but that she felt they were almost too much an extension of her. It just comes to mind as you Talk about it. Yeah, and I think Emma could do with so much therapy.

Sarah, you wanted to jump in there. No, I was just going to say it was really interesting, Emerald that he said that, because actually I'd written that down the line, you are me, don't you get that, don't you understand that? Whatever you do, I'm your mother, what happens to you, happens to me. And it was an episode Naila Ahmed wrote, and we were talking about those episodes before we came into studio that make your skin tingle and that you remember and that stand out. And that episode beautifully acted, it felt.

like it really summed up how Emma sees motherhood, that visceral feeling of her children being part of her. Experiencing which we feel in our skin. Now Emma's own mother went to prison. Yeah. Her name was Susan in 1993. Sarah, how do you think that impacted, how Emma navigated the crisis? When I was writing any scenes with Emma and George, I always had that in mind because I think obviously everybody's kind of got a

a fear of prison but for emma it was so real that kind of sense of everything from abandonment to terror and then for that to come back and it be your son which feels even more than your mother to me i would feel that i don't know emerald how do you feel about that yeah i think so and i think it's like the two worst people isn't it and it's what i love about the archers and i think it's uniquely placed to do this is how storylines play out in real time. And that can mean a lifetime. Emma was a little kid when her mom went to prison and became the Ambridge one. And then for that to sort of go quiet. Everyone is very real. Everyone moves on. You cope. You just live your life. You don't talk about it all the time. You don't really ever talk about it. And then suddenly

you realize history is repeating and that something you haven't sorted it out. And so it's all happening again. I think for Emma, it felt like there was a lot of processing her own childhood experience with that when George was in prison as well. So it felt confusing playing her, you know, that it's like, how old am I at this point? There is this tiny child who's also trying to process this thing that they've just never talked about because you just try and live your normal life. Let's also, Kara, talk about some of the characters who are aren't mothers. How do you see how the archers has explored that decision in a woman's life? And obviously for some women, it won't have been a decision. It would have been something

that happened or could have been circumstance? I'm really pleased that the archers got to this because not everybody does become a mother or wants to become a mother. It's been really interesting that we've got two, three actually characters recently. Chelsea, who had a termination, very young, very confused by that. but also made a very clear decision for herself, brilliantly supported by her mum through all of the complexity of that and helping her work through some of the ambivalence and confusion that she had. But then you've got Kirsty and Fallon,

who are two women ostensibly of childbearing age, who have decided no, or it just hasn't come up in their life. But I think there's something with Kirsty now where she's settled into a different relationship with that in a sense. and she's going forward as a woman in a different way. We did, in the run-up to the programme, ask women's our listeners what impact the archers has had on them. I want to read out what one listener had to say, getting in touch.

Her name is Lizzie Cole. She says, it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that the archers saved my life. In January 2011, I was six months pregnant, and Helen Archer was pregnant with Henry. I remember Helen complaining that her ankles were swollen and Amy insisting that she must go to hospital immediately, where Henry was then born via emergency C-section. In April 2011, I discovered that my legs had completely swollen from knee to ankle.

My instinct was to just put it off and not deal with it. But that episode of The Archers came back to me, so I decided to get checked. I was immediately put on medication and placed under close medical supervision for the rest of my pregnancy. If I hadn't listened to the Archers and hadn't heard that storyline, I can't imagine how horrifically things could have ended. That's from Lizzie Cole. and Lola, who is now 14. But it shows how important it is.

You know, the archers was started in order to educate as well as entertain. And it shows how important it is to actually talk about these stories, particularly that affect women's health, you know, that sometimes aren't talked about. We talk more about, you know, cows and sheep in health than these kind of issues sometimes. And it never has shied away from difficult subjects. There was a 2021 story that Sunny was referring to. as well, that saw Lillian's niece, Alice, struggling with alcoholism when pregnant. And I want to talk a little bit more about the welfare of women in the Archers.

One storyline that had a huge impact was the gradual unfolding of abuse that Helen Archer, formerly Helen Titchener, faced at the hands of her husband, Rob, which ended in 2016 with her stabbing him. Sarah, can you sum that up for those that aren't familiar with it? Yes, so she met and fell in love with Rob Tichner, who seemed like the perfect man. slowly and very um i think the archers did it very well because it we it was very slowly revealed to us and to helen that this man was a coercive controller and it was chilling in that she you know slowly she was separated from her family he distanced herself he stopped her working he then started to gaslight her get her to question her reality until she was totally broken her

self-esteem this woman who's a confident woman you know who'd coped with so much was broken and isolated and extremely vulnerable. I've been worried sick about how you're going to cope with two children. Do you honestly think you'll manage? I do manage. I always try my best. I know, but you get overwhelmed very easily, don't you? I suppose. And what if you became so overwhelmed that you hurt one of the children?

Can you imagine? I never do that. I wouldn't, Rob. I know you wouldn't intend to. The way you've been. Sometimes you frighten me. I think that that's the show at its best, where it also takes something from the real world,

the outside world. We knew there was going to be this changing law and builds a story towards that. In that clip, you heard Louisa Paticus playing Helen and Timothy Watson as Rob. I want to read a contribution that came in from a listener as well on this particular storyline. didn't want to give us her name, but she told us this. I was absolutely hooked on the domestic

abuse story with Helen and Rob, until one day when a particular episode made me feel very uncomfortable. It was a mirror of my own life. I found myself unable to breathe at one point. You see, I'd been unhappily married for over 40 years to a man who was a narcissist, a bully and very controlling. He would belittle me in front of people, told me I was a terrible mother, not fit to look after animals, stupid, not able to hold a conversation, etc. and I always thought it was all my fault. Until I heard Helen begin to fight back and have the supporter of her family through it all.

I divorced him and it was all due to the archers that I found the courage to go. Since then, I've even found love with a wonderful man who has shown me that I could love and be loved. But, Karah, what about the public reaction to that gradual unfolding of that story? It was huge and it's still happening now, the fact that we're still having this conversation now about that storyline so many years on

shows just how much currency it has got. I certainly know of women who had that moment of, that's my marriage. Oh my God, that's my marriage. I know of other women as well who would make sure that the particular episodes of the Archers that were playing out those scenes between Helen and Rob. They were playing when their daughter came round because they weren't their daughter to know, to hear that and have that moment themselves. That was incredibly powerful.

And I think it taught, or it showed a lot of those people that didn't understand what coercive control was or those that might just say, well, just leave them, that it's not as easy as that. You don't realize it's happening by the time you do, you're in so deep. And I think we were very early in that conversation of it being something other than physical abuse, that there was that understanding that domestic abuse was physical abuse. and that there is a very insidious, very damaging, very dangerous abuse that doesn't ever need somebody to hit you or touch you. And I think that conversation is still only developing now. And I do want to put it out to our listeners as well, of course, if you've been impacted by any of the issues that we're talking about today, there is help and support that can be found via the BBC Action Line website. You're listening to Women's Hour

and our special New Year's Day program celebrating 75 years of the women of the archers. The very first episode of The Archers was broadcast today the 1st of January, 1951. And as I have said, we're extremely lucky to be recording this program at the mailbox in BBC Birmingham in the actual studio where the Archers is performed. Now, the explosion at Greg Gables.

Nigel Pargetter falling off the roof, the epic floods of 2015, just some of the moments that were created here in this space for the ears of Archer's listeners. But as any one of them will tell you, the Archer's is as much about everyday life

as it is about high drama. Well, to think more about that idea and also get a bit of a look behind the scenes, I was invited earlier into one of the most hallowed spaces in Ambridge, the kitchen at Brookfield,

the original Archer's family farm, where I caught up with Felicity Finch, who plays Ruth Archer. This is a place that you have lived in, worked, acted in for decades. We've just stepped over the threshold, if we'll call it that. How does it feel? That's my kitchen. It's my home. It's where I've played out so many scenes as Ruth.

With the members of my family, you know, my other family. And it also holds in its walls in everything about it, the history as well, the years gone by. Describe what we're looking at. Okay, it's quite an intimate space compared to the rest of the studio. It's got wood panels around it as well as all the kitchen equipment in it, etc. And a table at the centre of it. Let's go and have a look. Well, we've got a fridge here and we've got a sink and running water and a teapot and a kettle, of course.

tea, they're all important cups of tea. But over the other side is the aga. Now, this is a central piece. It absolutely is. I'd say this is the piece of the kitchen that is at the heart of everything of what it means to be in the Brookfield kitchen. It comes into its own at Christmas time.

Of course. Because we're trying to make a million dishes like a few else, you know, in different parts of the kitchen and somebody might have brought something in from somewhere else and it'll be warmed in there. But looking at the auger, It is kind of making me hungry. Well, it just happens, Nula, that I've baked a carrot cake, especially for you coming today.

I mean, I love carrot cake, but I'll be honest. I kind of expected lemon drizzle. No, no, no, no. That's Jill, my mother-in-law's territory. I could never even attempt a lemon drizzle cake. Well, let's go and sit down and have a little bit of cake. Okay, I'm sitting at the table here in the Brookfield kitchen. Felicity is making the tea.

If you think about how many cups of tea must have been drunk in this kitchen. Yes, since 1951. Oh, my goodness. So, Felicity slash Ruth is taking a seat beside me. But, you know, you talk about all the cups of tea. And there you go. Oh, thank you very much. That really signifies that this is the headquarters of a family and a business.

Talk to me a little about the way Ruth runs both. of those. She's still absolutely there, helping with the milking of her herd, maintaining the herd, maintenance on the farm. You know, there's so much to do, all the paperwork connected to a farm. So Ruth is doing all of that, but she's also being a mum. Like all great characters, there is tensions within Ruth's identity, not just between work and motherhood. We talk there about them being inseparable as you see it. She's not from a farming background. This is a space then that she's not to take possession of. It hasn't always been easy.

We're going to hear a clip now from 2022. Chelsea Horriban has decided to have an abortion after a one-night stand with your son, Ruth's son, Ben. Ruth's mother-in-law, Jill, who you've mentioned, has given Ben a peace of her mind about the whole episode. And let's just say that things escalate. He's my grandson. Yes, and he needed you.

Instead, you crushed him. Why couldn't you think of my kids before your own selfish, backwards opinions? You're being unfair? I'm not. From the moment I arrived here, it was clear I wasn't an archer, turning your nose at me wanting to work on the farm, thinking you know everything about what a woman should and shouldn't be.

That's not true. Perfect, Jill, Archer, helping out, hopeless Ruth. Me and David are not you and Phil. And you judged me for that. You've been judging me ever since. I am not going to let you do that to my children. How dare you say that you're ashamed of him. He should have fought for the baby.

So says Patricia Green, who plays Jill, and of course Felicity Finch, who's sitting here beside me, playing Ruth Archer. This table has hosted so many showdowns. That one is up there. How was the scene staged? How did you approach it? Do you remember?

It's one of those scenes that somehow encapsulates years and years and years of a relationship of a history. And when you're talking about Jill, who is the matriarch of Brookfield and what some people would say of, you know, of the archers. And then you've got Ruth, who no matter how much she is integrated into Ambridge, is an incomer. Which doesn't mean she's not accepted, but it means, you know, there are moments in life and this is one of those moments where everything kind of blows up. And when you do that scene, if you can remember, I know it's a few years ago, are you sitting down doing it?

No, I wouldn't have been sitting down. It's kind of one of those scenes where you think about everything that the scene is about and prepare as much as you can for that and then you just go. And actually it was really interesting what Paddy Green, who plays Jill, chose to because she was very quiet and controlled. So that was a really interesting dynamic that I think is the reason that Ruth cannot believe that she's just sitting there. And in the end, what matters is Ben's future.

And so it kind of opens a fault line, I guess we could say, Ruth's family life and to think it all happened here while I nibble on some some very lovely carrot cake I'm a very lovely carrot cake I'm forgetting to eat it is delicious of course

tell me a little bit about Ruth's relationship to cooking some might say it's a bit misunderstood well if you want to rile me Nulah just say Ruth's a bad cook I'm not going to say that because when that's trundled out sometimes I

I immediately, well I would, wouldn't I, sort of confront it as saying, well, you know, in the beginning, when she first arrived at Brookfield, she was not a great cook and even managed to burn pizza, I think. But gradually over the years, Ruth did learn to cook, but Ruth will never be the cook that Jill is. But I think there's something underlying, I would imagine, in most women's is in me and it is in Ruth, that you still want to be able to do it when you can. You know, you still want to be that provider of food as well. But it is, yeah, it's a conflict without a doubt. Speaking of food, I have to make a confession to the listeners. There is no carrot cake. There is no tea.

I'm here eating some sliced banana, having some water. We also have Vanessa Nuttall here as well. Ness, as you also go by, long-standing Archer's technical producer. I feel I should give you a round of applause. Ness, what have you been doing? So whilst the actors are speaking, I'm doing the action behind them, creeping around them, doing various things.

I've been making tea for the action to take place in the scene. So I was opening a cupboard, taking the mugs out. So often I'm doing several things for several different actors in the one scene. But Felicity, what's it like for you, like the relationship with Ness? They kind of need to be in your head, be like a second pair of hands. I think of it as being like shadow and I think the magical thing is that you know, 80, 90% of the time

you're not really aware of her because she's so integrated, so empathic really as well. The moments that stick in my mind because it's when you really notice the person is when I remember once there was a muntjac deer a fawn that the mother had been killed and the muntjac was in the kitchen staying warm.

I just remember when the spot person had to be the Muntjap. And I think this spot effects as well, that was a new term for me. This is people that go around making some of these sounds as you are working. So they're sort of pitter-pattering a little bit and moving around. Playing little animals is part of the spot person. It is. Dog sheep, dogs and all sorts of terriers.

Live lambs were put in the auger to keep them warm after-birth nests. Can you please explain what happened there? This thing. Here I have. Okay, we've got a sheepskin rug. Yes. Wrapped around log for a little bit of weight. Okay, quite a big log.

Because it has the sound of something. Okay, so this is about the size of a small lamb. Yeah, it's quite large for a newborn, I would say. Yes. But again, and also it's important to say that my colleagues behind the glass are also playing in recorded sound effects. So if we need any bleating from the munt jack deer, for example, or the lamb, they're playing that in as well because we're painting the picture

through people's ears and it's lots of different audio signals so I would go to the Arga here in the bottom of them and we'd leave the door open obviously but... Then you think a lion has just been put in the Arga to be kept warm because its mother

had rejected it many people will remember times that it has happened on the story as well when you think back about all the scenes from lamb, deer fights, cooking, frozen pizza. Why do you think it is such an important

or central part of the drama of the archers? I think because it creates a hub where people come together. So many characters over the years have sat here and drunk cups of tea and I always say the scenes where people just have a nice chat are just as important with the scenes where the archers deals with really important social issues as well. that juxtaposition that I think is part of what makes the program work. My thanks to Felicity Finch, who plays Ruth Archer and to technical producer Vanessa

Nuttle. Now, I am delighted to say, we have been presented with some real cake. I thought it was rubber. It's real cake. You're not used to this, right? I hear it's cold water and bananas for the most part. Thank you. So we talked about some of the roles that women have and the jobs, but let's

drill into it a little bit more about what it's like for women working in Ambridge. Kara, Felicity touched on Ruth's split role as farmer and mother. Ruth arrived at Brookfield in 1987. That was a time when farms were still run by men, but things were beginning to change. How would you describe Ruth's journey since then? Ruth's journey has been really enjoyable, actually. Ruth was one of those that came in. I'm a farmer.

I'm not here as a wife. from here as a farmer, and that was it. First and foremost, happened to fall in love with David and off we go. She was that generation that were professionalised. They were those professional farmers and we absolutely see it now in Stella as well, which is her daughter Pipps partner. Stella doesn't come from a farming background, wanted to be a farmer and that's her career. And Emerald, you could say your character Emma has had several careers. Bar-made, cleaner, worked in a tea room. She has a new business now, tree surgeon with her husband, Ed. Do you think she finally has the agency that she's been craving?

Yeah, for sure. I think she's only just started the sort of career she's been scrambling to survive. And I think like so many women, caring responsibilities have got in the way of her own dreams. So she's finally got the space to think. And I think when she discovered that she loved the tree surgeon, world was such an amazing discovery for her that, oh, there's something I'm good at that's not, I would never have thought about this. It's not classically feminine. It's not, you know, something obvious. I love being up a tree and I love wielding a chainsaw. I just think it's

fantastic. Sunny, you know, we've talked about Lily as a good time girl in some ways, but also a businesswoman, shrewd at times. You've played her all these years. What we've you say have been her challenges when it comes to her work? Because of her class or because of how she was born, she has confidence. She has the confidence that if she abarks on something, it's going to work. And I think that is, you know, such a huge contrast with these two particular characters. I think there is, she has a sense of entitlement about these things. I will do this job and I'm going to be successful at it. I think that's the background to Lillian. She's certainly had issues with her men in her life and certainly with Matt Crawford, you know, who did

the dirty on her and cleaned her out and all that. And certainly when they started Amside property, which she runs now, Matt Crawford wanted to run it himself. He didn't want her to have anything to do with it. It was just name only in her name. But she said, no, I'm going to be, I'm going to be doing it. So she took back the power. And the same a little bit with the Stables, which she's sort of inherited from Shula, her cousin. Stables, she runs, she's a great horsewoman, Lillian, for those listeners out there who don't listen. And also she shares in the ball and she makes her mind up about all sorts of things. And so this is what it's going to be.

And she never has any doubt about herself or her business brain. That confidence that you mentioned. Sarah, the character of Lillian, Sunny tells us there, about some of the sexism that she encountered, you know, whether it's about having her name on it or other aspects. But how much do you think, in general, do women in the archers still have to grapple professionally with sexism? Yeah, I think they do. It's really interesting when we talk to our agricultural advisors, Sybil and Fiona, and they talk to us about the world that obviously has moved on. Like Cara said, that there are more women in farming and that it can be a career. But it still is a challenge to women in farming.

And there's a lot of those kind of old stereotypical ideas about what a woman in farming might be. And even that, like Lillian was saying about her character, having the confidence and coming from a background, a kind of deep-seated confidence, that without that, I think that the sexism can really grind you down, I think. But I would also like to talk about this idea of being in a village. I grew up in a village. And I think the opportunities as far as jobs, particularly for women, are very limited. So unless you're in an obvious farming family and you're going to follow in those footsteps, you know, Emerald talked about the chicken factory. Tracy, her aunt also worked in the chicken factory. There's tea rooms. It's quite limited. And actually, Ambridge has more opportunities than our village that the pub closed down, the shop closed down. So all of those things play into it. Kara, really interesting to hear Sarah there talk about her own village, for example, but I'd be wondering how you see the pace of social change in Ambridge compared to a typical rural village.

I think it's a bit of a mistake to think that the countryside is set in aspect that nothing changes at all or to think that the pace of change is the same as the pace of change of the seasons of the farming year. You know, the countryside is a really dynamic place. I've seen it change a lot. I grew up in a middle of nowhere. In Exmoor, it's a very, very different village that I go back to when I go back and visit the family now. We can always say, though, but why isn't there a character like this and a character like that? I think the archers is getting there.

I think we're seeing a lot more diversity in the arches. I am seeing that reflected, maybe anecdotally, but in the village that I live in, there's a lot more diversity there as well. I would always want to hold it to account, though, for the archers always to be striving to be better, to be more representative of the different lives that you see in the countryside now. It has explored class, motherhood, women's health,

at jobs we mentioned there. But I want to talk also about the relationships between women, how they support each other or don't. What brings them together? What pushes them apart? Kara, going back into Ambridge, is it a place of sisterhood or rivalry? I think it's the rivalry can be sometimes a source of great humour. And those that don't listen to the archers, there are moments when it is absolutely hilarious. And some of that can come in with the play of the women. sort of an oppositional play between them.

But there is such a depth of emotion and care and regard between the women as a sort of a sisterhood friendship. Chelsea and Zanab, two young women coming in and Zanat being a person of colour, there's been a storyline with them recently of them, both being impacted by a misogynist, racist behaviour and how they've rallied around that as well. Well, I'm sat next to Lillian here,

who has one of the most endearing friendships in the Archers and that's with the character Linda Snell and they've bashed heads, they've had their rivalries but they've had these moments where they've really come through for each other and they are some of when I think back over the last years those are some of the moments that really, really stay with me because as we mentioned earlier Sunny Lillian has lost her sister and her mum Peggy

So, you know, we need to sometimes have the family that we choose. Absolutely. And it is interesting that relationship, as Cara says, with Linda Snell. Because they have always been at loggerheads, as you say, you know, and great comedy has come from that. But it was when Linda was involved in the fire at Grey Gables and she was very badly injured. And I had some lovely, lovely scenes with her

where she shared with Lillian that she was really worried because of the facial injuries that she had, that she would cease to be attractive to her husband, Robert. And it was so painful for her. And we had some beautiful scenes there where Lily was able to reassure her and, you know, everything will be fine. What have been Emerald in here.

What about Emma? Do you think she struggles to maintain friendships? She's a really interesting, complicated mix and feels really real. I love her complicated stuff. At the moment, it's really tough, Because everything with her son George has slightly detonated her whole life. And so I don't know if she's really got strong friendships at the moment

because everyone that she used to have has been damaged by everything with George and by everything George was doing before the crash. And she used to have a really lovely close relationship with Helen, Archer, because their kids were the same age and they were going to the same staff. Fallon, who she's very close to, they have a really interesting. friendship where they're very close but there's at its core there's some rivalry there's some competition I think Fallon and Emma's now husband Ed had a thing at one time so I wonder if that's really at the base of everything and so even though Fallon and her they've been in business together

they've worked together Fallon was a victim in the crash and so everything that happened there in the fallout of that is just ruined a lot I think they have restored things and a little bit, credit to Fallon, I would say. But there is this crunchiness at the heart of it, which is so fun to play. But yeah, it's an interesting one with the sisterhood and Emma. I do think also, you know, we're talking about the words rivalry and competitive, and that's often considered a negative, however. Well, and also, I don't think he's ever considered that negative when it's used for men.

I was going to say, it's in the context of women and how we judge women for things and the different language we use for women. On that point of how we judge the women to differently to hear the men, a classic example of this is Susan Carter, so Emma's mum. And she's seen as the gossip in the village. When Brian, though, who's a farm owner on members of boards and things like that, when he talks about, God, have you heard about what he's done over there, that thing, that's absolutely fine.

That's not gossip at all. But when Susan does it, she's belittled, she's admonish, she's pushed aside, Just as the gossip. Well, our time is almost up. But before I go, Sunny and Emerald, it being New Year's Day, I want you to suggest a New Year's resolution for your characters, Emerald First for Emma.

Yeah, I'd love Emma to decide to do one thing for herself every week. I don't think she can, but that's what I'd like. Sunny, what about a New Year's resolution for Lillian then? Well, I suppose one should say she needs to give up cigarettes and gin and tonic. I mean, that's the obvious. But I think what she really should give up is wearing very, very high stilettos because she's getting a bit on in years. And, you know, she could take a tumble and she could break her hip.

Great New Year's resolutions there. I have to say I'm not really one for New Year's resolutions, but I very much appreciate both of those coming in for Emma and Lillian from Emerald and from Sunny. So I'm sad to say, our time here in Ambridge has come to an end. We have been celebrating 75 years since the Archers first came to air. Here's a little bit of audience feedback. I'm 70 and I first listened to The Archers with my grandmother, an avid fan, when I was four years old. 66 years later, I still listen most days.

The Archers have been my radio family all that time. I know them all so well. And some, like Peggy and Jill, have been there for me right from the start. So thank you to every single person involved in that incredible creation that is The Archers. I will listen until I can't and my family know that when the time comes I will make my funeral entrance to the theme tune. It will bring a smile to the face of everyone who knows me. What an appropriate note on which to end. My thanks to everyone who joined us today.

That is the writer Sarah Heher, Dr. Cara Courage from Academic Archers, Sunny Ormond, who plays Lillian and Emerald. O'Hanran who plays Emma. I also want to thank Libby Purvis and also Felicity Finch who plays Ruth Archer, we heard from her earlier. Plus thanks to Vanessa Nuttall, technical producer, also known as the Spot

Effects Ninja. And finally, thank you to all the women of the archers, the characters, the writers, the actors, the production team and the listeners, who for 75 years have proved that everyday lives can carry extraordinary

extraordinary stories. Here's to the next 75 and Happy New Year!