Quite a mournful weekend, all in all.
The Archers has not managed to hold me in its grip for quite a few years now, but I made a point of catching the end of the Sunday morning omnibus, having been alerted to the death of Phil by Tim Teeman’s article in The Times.
It was very well done, & I swallowed hard. But the end of the Sunday night episode (which I often listen to, just to keep up) really did make me cry; the continuity announcer also seemed to be struggling a bit.
I won’t be sending flowers to the funeral. But a real man has died & all those involved with the programme, as well as the listeners, have lost someone who has been part of their lives for a long time.
I cannot remember if I heard the very first episode – it may have been past my bedtime. Hard to imagine now, a time when children were in bed, leaving the adults in peace, by half past six o’clock.
Did we visit Ambridge just before or after our Journey Into Space? I definitely remember being allowed to listen to that in the evenings, but it did not start till 1953, by which time I was definitely a familiar of Dan & Doris & all the rest of them.
By the time I was about 7 I was breaking the rules about bed; instead of going to sleep I switched on the light & read a book. I had to keep one ear open for the 9 o’clock pips, because as soon as the news was over Mummy would go to bed – she would see the light on under the door & there would be Trouble. Sometimes she took me by surprise & came out of the living room before 9 o’clock to go to the bathroom or to fetch something from her bedroom – I had to scramble to turn out the light before (hopefully) she noticed.
Things were much better when we moved to our new house. There she had to come all the way upstairs, so there was time for me to take action if she moved. I had to keep an ear out for the back door however, in case she went outside for some reason & would be able to see the light in my room; that is until I realised that she wasn’t going to bother any more to come all the way upstairs just to tick me off.
