“My son is going to have the names of three good men. My grandfather, my father, my brother.”
Helen has decided to name her son John Anthony Archer and call him Jack. Here’s a look at his three namesakes.
Jack Woolley
A Birmingham-born, self-made businessman, Jack first appeared in The Archers on 4 September 1962. He bought Grey Gables Country Club, with a view to turn it into an exclusive holiday centre for tired business executives. It was his idea to build a golf course which opened in June 1972.
In 1972, recently widowed Peggy became Jack’s personal assistant and moved to Grey Gables in which she also got a few shares. In 1974, as his divorce from Valerie was going through, Jack proposed to Peggy. She refused and then a couple of months later he changed his tune, telling Peggy he had no intentions of re-marrying but he hoped they could be friends.
Over the next couple of decades that friendship developed and on 1 January 1991, 71-year-old Jack married 66-year-old Peggy. They had a happy marriage until Jack’s death on their 23rd wedding anniversary.
Jack and Peggy used to share a joke about the dish Duck Bigarade. One evening, when she told him they were having Duck Bigarade for dinner, he said 'Dirk Bogarde'? Peggy has never known if he genuinely misheard, was making a joke, or really thought that's what it was called. Ever since then, when they had duck, or he saw duck on the menu, he'd say 'Dirk Bogarde tonight'.
Read more about Jack Woolley's life
John Archer
Born on 31 December 1975, John Daniel Archer was the eldest son of Tony and Pat Archer. In 1998 (on his younger brother’s 7th birthday), after arguing with his dad, he died tragically when the tractor he was driving overturned.
When he was 3 years old John said there was a dragon under his bed called Antibiotic. As a teenager he was a Neneh Cherry fan and when he hit his 20s he drank ice ciders with his mates. He was said to have lovely cheekbones.
John had a passionate relationship with Sharon Richards, four years his senior, and in his late teens moved in with her and her little daughter Kylie. It didn’t work out and Sharon moved away. It was only after John’s death that his family discovered, Sharon had a son and John was his father.
Pigs at Bridge Farm were started by John in 1993 when – to his parents’ surprise – he bought four piglets from Phil Archer’s pet sow Molly.
Anthony Archer
Anthony William Daniel Archer, known as Tony, is the father of John Archer, and the son of Peggy Woolley. Tony didn't know his own father long. John Archer, known as Jack, died when Tony was 20 years old.
Peggy thinks with Tony it's 'like father like son'; always full of ideas. However, the dynamic is more melancholic from Tony’s perspective. He thinks, no matter what he's achieved, in Peggy's eyes he's still a boy who needs looking after, like his father. He doesn’t think he has become the man she wanted him to be.
When it comes to clothes, Tony takes after his grandfather (Dan Archer), preferring them to be comfortable rather than smart. But he has, in his time, owned a pair of orange flares.
Tony’s relationship with his daughter Helen became strained when she decided to have a baby by donor insemination. He struggled to support the choice she had made but at Henry’s emergency birth, Tony regretted the bad feeling.
Read about Rob's name choice for their son and his family's history.
