In anticipation of Adam marking his 50th birthday I have been poring over the annals of his life in The Archers Archive. It's an impressive back catalogue of storylines.
There is of course, lots of information on Adam’s work at Home Farm and his endless power struggle there with Brian. Then there’s when he came out as gay and his relationship with Ian. But there’s also the time he was in Africa, the time he was assaulted and the time he got bitten by a snake (in Ambridge, not Africa).
But the one that caught my attention is Adam’s Kidnapping.
In January 1970, a worried Jennifer told her parents about a threat to Adam who was only two and a half years old at the time.
The next record, from 9 February 1970, says Adam was kidnapped from The Bull and Peggy phoned the police. Four days later Adam was found in Birmingham. Jennifer and her then husband Roger Travers-Macy went to collect him. Their return to The Bull was televised.
The kidnappers, two strangers called Henry Smith and Chloe Tempest delivered a demand for £5,000 but they were so inept that before Adam’s family had time to respond the police had already tracked them down.
Decades on, maybe the time Adam was kidnapped has become an often-recounted family story at Home Farm get-togethers, and will certainly be recalled at the celebration of his half-centenary. On the other hand it may have been wiped from the Aldridge collective memory bank...
'In a good place as he turns 50'
Andrew Wincott joined the cast of The Archers as Adam Macy in 2003. It was "in the days when we still recorded at Pebble Mill", he recalls.
But taking on the role of Adam wasn't Andrew's first ever Archers appearance. Andrew says, "I also played Thorkil, a Danish agricultural student who worked at Bridge Farm, in 1991 - but that's another story!"
Andrew thinks, "Adam seems to be in a fairly good place as he turns 50. After a few rocky moments with Ian in the last year or two things seem to be reasonably stable now. Charlie is out of the picture and they seem to have put the past behind them.
"Also, life on the farm looks solid now. There's the new partnership agreement in the offing, though we're yet to see how that plays out. He's also brought about changes, not without the customary struggle with Brian, to safeguard the soil following the damage revealed by the flood, protecting the legacy of Home Farm for the whole family.
"But one never knows - expect the unexpected. Life has a strange way of springing surprises. With the effects of any changes post-Brexit yet to appear it's difficult to know what lies ahead for Adam or for the future of farming in Ambridge and the UK."
