Angela Piper and Charles Collingwood (Jennifer and Brian Aldridge)
So Brian is giving relationship advice to Roy. Brian may have been uncomfortable doing it, but he’s certainly got a lot of relevant experience to draw on. We look back on one of the longest – but also most volatile – relationships in Ambridge.
The daughter of publicans Peggy Archer (now Woolley) and her first husband Jack, Jennifer had been brought up with younger sister Lilian in The Bull. Enthusiastically embracing the opportunities of the swinging 60s, she qualified as a teacher in 1966 and began a career as a writer.
The following year saw Jennifer’s first novel accepted for publication. But it was also the year she shocked Ambridge by giving birth to an illegitimate son, Adam. Although she refused to name the father, the boy's shock of red hair implicated Brookfield's cowman Paddy Redmond.
Jennifer didn't remain a single mother for long. In 1968 she married antiquarian book dealer Roger Travers-Macy and they had a daughter Debbie in 1970. But the marriage slowly disintegrated, not helped by his frequent travelling on business. Divorce proceedings were under way when Brian came on the scene in 1975.
Sherborne educated and with one sister Liz, wealthy Brian had lost both his parents in a car crash. He came to Ambridge having bought Home Farm and 1500 acres from the Bellamy Estate. He met Jennifer at a dinner party and the attraction was immediate. They were married on 29 May 1976.
Brian found it hard to get on with his stepson Adam and wanted a son of his own. But he had to be content when the following year Jennifer gave birth to their daughter, Kate.
Affairs and altercations
A year later came the first of several unwise alliances which have threatened the Aldridge marriage. Jennifer started work with academic John Tregorran on a local history project, which developed from a small exhibition into a jointly-authored book: Ambridge – An English Village Through the Ages. But Brian feared their closeness was more than just intellectual. He may have had a point. After matters came to a head Jennifer and John made sure to keep their distance.
By 1985, Brian was the one straying, taking wild risks as he fell under the spell of the aristocratic Caroline Bone (now Sterling). Even when Jennifer discovered the relationship, he found it hard to give up the affair.
Brian and Jennifer decided to have another baby, in the hope that it would bring them closer together. As Jennifer was by now in her early forties, the pregnancy was more worrying than her previous ones. Brian found it hard to conceal his disappointment when the baby, although healthy, was another girl: Alice.
Roger Travers-Macy reappeared in 1991, hoping to resume a fatherly role with his daughter Debbie, now 21. It came as a real bombshell. Brian resented the intrusion into his own good relationship with Debbie. But he was not to foresee the chemistry that still existed between Jennifer and her ex. They started a passionate affair whose repercussions rocked the whole family.
It was easy for Brian to blame Jennifer when troubled Kate ran away from home in 1994.
A son at last
Jennifer has tolerated Brian's more minor flirtations, which have included Betty Tucker (when she was a cleaner at Home Farm), pony club instructor Mandy Beesborough and twin town delegate Marie-Claire Beguet. But she needed all her reserves of tolerance and wifely attraction when a flirtation with doctor's wife Siobhan Hathaway – a much younger woman – developed into a full-blown affair. And, irony of ironies, when Brian was finally to father the son he had hoped for so much, it was with Siobhan.
Brian came within an ace of throwing it all up for a new life with Siobhan and baby Ruairi, who was born on 14 Nov 2002. But somehow the pull of Ambridge, the farm and Jennifer proved too much.
Jennifer went through hell forgiving Brian and accepting that he would always have an emotional tie to his son. Initially Siobhan made it easier for her by putting geography in the way, settling in Germany.
But Siobhan had one last tragic card to play. She turned up without warning in 2007 to announce that she had terminal cancer. Brian had more work to do with Jennifer to persuade her that they should provide a home for Ruairi. But with superhuman strength and compassion she agreed, and has made a superb job of it.
The future
Cynics may view the marriage as one of convenience. Jennifer gets a good material life and Brian an elegant and efficient homemaker. But to have survived so much turmoil, there has to be a greater underpinning than a mere domestic contract. There's no doubt that, in their own way, each loves the other.
On their 30th anniversary, Brian hoped that the next 30 years would be as much fun as the first 30. Perhaps fun isn't the word that Jennifer would have used. But the Aldridges are certainly fun to observe.
Charles Collingwood (Brian) and Angela Piper (Jennifer) reflect on Brian and Jennifer's relationship.
Keri Davies is an Archers scriptwriter and web producer.
Brian tells Siobhan how much she means to him (audio clip)
Jennifer Aldridge and John Tregorran – an affair of the mind?
Learn more about Brian, Roy, Peggy, Lilian, Adam, Debbie, Kate, Caroline, Alice, Mandy Beesborough and Ruairi – and the actors who play them – in our Who’s Who.
