Happy Hundredth June!

June Rosalind Spencer CBE (Peggy Woolley)

Before we recap on the week in Ambridge, we should pay tribute to actress June Spencer, who on Friday 14^thJune, celebrated her 100^thbirthday. June has been present from the first pilot episode in 1950, playing Peggy Archer, wife of Jack. Peggy was a townie from London and she and Jack ran The Bull - unfortunately, Jack was an alcoholic and Peggy struggled to bring up children Jennifer, Lilian and Tony in trying circumstances. Jack passed away and Peggy spent some years alone, before finally accepting the proposal of Jack Woolley, whom she wed in 1991. At last Peggy seemed to have found true and lasting happiness, but this ended when Jack developed dementia and later passed away. There was controversy a few years ago when Peggy announced that, in her Will, she had bypassed her three children (Tony, especially, was annoyed) and left everything to Helen and Tom. So, congratulations to June on her landmark birthday and long may she reign as the matriarch of the Archer clan!

Perhaps not surprisingly, Peggy (who is a few years younger than June - Peggy will be 95 in November) featured prominently in one of last week’s main storylines. She had arranged a meeting with selected members of the family (Jen, Brian, Pat and Tony, Adam, Alice, David and Rooooth) at the Lodge on Friday, but refused to tell them the purpose of the get together. One prominent absentee from the list of invitees was Lilian, who didn’t even know about the meeting until informed by her siblings.

Lilian feels snubbed and does her best to wangle an invite, but all her efforts are thwarted or neatly sidestepped by her mother. There is another complication too, as Peggy has been seen in the company of a tall, distinguished man who drives a 4x4 and who has visited Peggy’s home. Is this some new squeeze, Peggy’s three children wonder? Eventually Lilian can stand it no longer and, on Friday morning, she confronts her mother and says that she is coming to the meeting “if it is the last thing I do.” The wind is somewhat taken out of Lilian’s sails when Peggy replies “That’s fine dear; you’d better come in.”

When everyone is assembled (Rooooth couldn’t make it - someone had to run the farm) Peggy reveals the purpose. She was recently at Bridge Farm, helping Henry with his project, entitled ’Save our planet’ which seems a bit of a tall order for a primary school pupil, but what do I know about education nowadays? This set Peggy thinking and she realised that those gathered there today are at the heart of the nation, providing food, and she realised that they could make a real difference to the way farming is done in the future.

This is why she has called together all the heads of the family farms, as she will be offering a sum of money to whoever comes up with the best sustainable farming idea. A charitable trust (the ‘Ambridge Conservation Trust’) has been set up and Peggy will get a panel of experts to judge the various ideas. Of course, there is one question that everyone wants the answer to and it is Brian who asks “how much?” When Peggy tells them that it is £500,000, there is consternation. The 4x4 man, by the way, was a financial adviser.

Peggy says that, when she came to Ambridge from the city (she was an East End girl) it was such a joy. “And now that joy could be destroyed - like Henry, I want to save the planet.” As she tells Adam, when the meeting breaks up, it is a great privilege to be able to hand on the means to make things better and “I want to make a difference in my corner of the world - a small corner that means the world to me; here, in Ambridge.”

Adam tells his gran how proud he is of her and it is interesting to examine the reactions of some of the other attendees. Brian tells Jenny that it will be a wonderful opportunity for someone and he will bring Alice up to speed asap. “What about Kate?” Jenny asks. “What about Kate?” Brian replies. Lilian is still miffed at having been initially frozen out and she asks Adam why can’t she enter an idea, even though she’s not a farmer? Let’s be honest, any idea from Lilian would be directly related to a G&T, such as cloning lemons for mass production.

Then we come to Tony, who has been silent on the drive home. Pat asks him what he thinks and, once again, we are reminded that, as far as Tony is concerned, every silver lining has its cloud, as he tells his wife “When Mum named the family farms at the meeting, Home Farm came first - it always does.” Instead of trying to think of a scheme that could be a winner, he calls Peggy’s announcement “a grand gesture - as far as I can see, it’s the Will all over again.”

Having raced ahead in the ‘most miserable sod in Ambridge’ stakes, surely Tony can afford to be a little more optimistic? After all, it’s not as if it is just up to him and Pat (if it were, I reckon his pessimism would be more than justified). As it is, they can call on Tom and Helen for ideas - let’s face it, Tom has always been full of ideas and not all of them have been total rubbish - but now Bridge Farm has an extra trump card to play. I speak of course of the amazing Natasha; organiser of Open Farm Sunday, fruit juice queen and, as far as I can see, all-round superwoman. Ignoring the odd aberration (like marrying Tom) I wouldn’t be surprised if she is already working on a scheme to scoop the £500,000.

If Tony is a miserable sod, then he is currently being given a run for his money by Jim Lloyd, who is not only miserable, but spiteful with it. You may recall that the Prof fled his own non-party without explanation, leaving a goodly number of guests, friends, family and erstwhile colleagues and neighbours dumbfounded. This week we were no nearer to learning the reason for Jim’s sudden flight. Lynda, who has developed a recent and unlikely rapport with Jim, goes to see him and is soundly rebuffed and given the bum’s rush when she knocks on the door. Lynda has brought along copies of the speeches and tributes that the guests had prepared and is reduced to tears when Jim shoves them in the bin.

Susan quizzes Alistair about how Jim is. All to no avail, as Alistair himself doesn’t know. Also, he doesn’t want Susan poking her nose in (as if!) although, to be fair (and in this blog we do try to be fair to everyone, even nosey, interfering, rumour-mongering, gossip-spreading, snobbish, jumped-up shopkeepers with delusions of adequacy) she was concerned because Jim never turned up for his stint at the shop and there was no apology, nor explanation.

Alistair eventually gets Jim on his own and berates his father for treating Lynda badly, not to mention not fulfilling his duties as Parish Clerk and not telling anybody, plus Alistair has had Kiki on the phone, in tears because Jim cancelled a piano lesson without giving a reason. Jim says that it was because she can teach him nothing more.

As Alistair keeps pressing Jim, the Prof says “I don’t know what you want me to say” and Alistair replies “How about ‘sorry’ to Lynda, Kiki, Susan, me and Jazzer?” A testy Jim says that he doesn’t have to explain anything to anybody “For how many more times - I didn’t want the damn party!” Once again, Alistair tries, pointing out that it wasn’t a party, but a gathering of people who cared about Jim. Alistair adds that he’d never felt so humiliated, to which Jim says “not even when your gambling addiction was revealed to the whole pub, or when your wife left you because she didn’t love you any longer?” (See earlier comment about Jim being spiteful). Alistair says he’s going “before I say something I might regret.” My observation is that that was left behind quite some time ago. When Alistair returns, he tells his Dad that he’s fed up making excuses for him and that Jim is arrogant (true) and uncaring (who could argue?). Jim says that, if that’s what Alistair feels, perhaps he should find “alternative living arrangements”. “Perhaps I should” his son answers and we still don’t know why Jim abandoned his (non) party. All suggestions are welcomed (I wonder if Jim saw someone who could blackmail him for indiscretions during his uni career?)

Earlier, we referred briefly to Open Farm Sunday. Natasha had done a wonderful job organising activities for Bridge Farm, while Brookfield had resigned themselves to getting maybe half a dozen visitors, whose sat navs had led them astray. As it turned out, Brookfield was beating them off with sticks (which probably demonstrates the paucity of things to do in Ambridge on the average Sunday), while Bridge Farm attendance was disappointing. Over at Home Farm, Adam was bemoaning the lack of interest shown in his Aquaponics. Adam, it’s only fruit (or tomatoes - I lost the will to live) in water with fish swimming round. And a word of advice - if you are thinking of entering this for the £500k contest, then you’d better upgrade to Killer Whales, or Great Whites.

Have you noticed that the - shall we call them ’more senior’ - female characters are getting bigger parts recently? We have discussed Peggy’s initiatives at length (and for £500k, my proposal is being worked on - early indications indicate that it involves Kate, Susan, Jim and [insert character of your choice] plus a threshing machine - but Jill has been, if not kicking over the traces, then at least been scuffing them up a little.

We learned last week that, instead of serving teas at OFS, she was off for lunch with Leonard. As it turned out, because Brookfield got many more visitors than anticipated, David and Ben (or was it Josh?) had to go out and buy extra cake. Jill was being shown round Leonard’s home and remarked about how neat it was. The guided tour moved up to the first floor and Leonard pointed out the spare room (just opposite his). Leonard suggests that, should they ever be out late, Jill is welcome to stay over - in the spare room, of course “if you wanted.”

He tells her that he likes her a lot and she says that she likes him too. She returns to Brookfield (at 12.35 am!) to find Ben awake to let her in. He teases her, asking if she didn’t want to stay over? “Not tonight - no” Jill replies, giggling, as she goes to her room. “Go Gran!” is Ben’s reply.

Finally, we must mention the latest in the tasks set for Adam and Ian. It was set by Ruairi, but executed by Ben, who took Adam’s and Ian’s phones and sent a message to all their contacts, informing them that the new baby would be named after them. Susan fell for it hook, line and sinker and I must admit that it was a jolly jape. After the Friday meeting, Peggy asked an embarrassed Adam about the message she had received. Play along with it Adam - it could get you £500,000 and I‘m sure a boy would, in time, get used to being called Peggy.