Remembering Grace - and Welcoming Virginia McKenna

On 22nd September 2015 Jill, Peggy, Carol and Christine remember that fateful night (60 years ago to the day) when Grace Archer died rescuing the horses from a blazing stable. They are joined at Grey Gables by Hester, an old friend of Carol's from Bristol.

With the arrival of Hester, we're delighted to welcome VIRGINIA MCKENNA.

“Having been a loyal listener to ‘The Archers’ for many years, it was just amazing to receive an invitation to join them to play Hester. A character from the past, sometimes absent-minded, sometimes with surprising recall. I had the warmest and friendliest of welcomes from Peggy, Jennifer, Jill, Carol and Toby with whom I would be working, and from the Studio Manager and the Director, Sean O’Connor.

Not having worked on the radio for many years, it was a very special day – one I shall always remember.”

- Virginia McKenna

Photograph shows (l to r): Lesley Saweard (Christine), Virginia McKenna (Hester), Sean O'Connor (Archers Editor), Eleanor Bron (Carol), Joanna Toye (Writer), Patricia Greene (Jill) and June Spencer (Peggy).

Sean O'Connor, Archers Editor: 

"I have long wanted to dramatise the ’behind the scenes’ story of the death of Grace Archer, so was keen to mark the occasion with a special one off drama, which became Dead Girls Tell No Tales. But I was also determined to mark the event in The Archers itself. I discussed the idea with Joanna Toye, who has been writing for the programme on and off since 1984 and is steeped in the history of the programme. We wanted to celebrate this game-changing moment in The Archers, but also move the present day story on - the past intertwined with the present, as many of the best Archers stories are.

We consciously set out to make this week reflective in mood - a musing on the passing of time, remembrance and mortality. Ever since the early episodes of her return to The Archers, Carol Tregorran has reminded the listener of her husband John’s passion for the poetry of Ernest Dowson (‘They are not long, the days of wine and roses’). In many ways, Carol’s function has been to remind the senior characters - and the audience - what they were like as young women - when Carol Grey arrived in Ambridge back in the 1950s... 

Photograph shows (l to r): Thelma Rogers (Peggy Archer), Anne Cullen (Carol Grey) and Lesley Saweard (Christine Archer)

So we decided that we would collect the senior characters - those who remained from the events of 1955: Peggy, Carol, Christine - and one whose life in Ambridge would never have happened if it weren’t for Grace’s death - Jill. And they would dine at Grey Gables on the anniversary of the day Grace died, just as Phil, John, Carol and Grace did sixty years before. Carol would even lose an earring, just as Grace did on that fateful night. Our catalyst for this musing about the past would be a visitor to Ambridge, Carol’s friend from Bristol. Joanna came up with a wonderful character, Hester. Is she aware of what she is saying? Perhaps she is a little forgetful or eccentric? How much of what she says is true? But who would play this pivotal character in this special week?

I didn’t have to think for many seconds to wonder if Virginia McKenna might just consider playing the role. But I also knew that she spends much of her energies in her work for the Born Free Foundation, the charity she set up with her husband, Bill Travers. I contacted the Foundation and expected a polite refusal, but Virginia wrote back immediately to say she’d love to play the part.

It was a very special day having Virginia in The Archers studio. As well as her acute reading of the ambiguous Hester, Virginia also brings with her the hinterland of those films for which she is so fondly remembered from her early career: Carve Her Name With Pride, The Cruel Sea, A Town Like Alice and The Smallest Show On Earth. It’s this hinterland that she embodies that was such a treat to bring to Ambridge in our efforts to conjure the ghosts of the 1950s. Much has changed since then, but like The Archers itself, it’s comforting that many things endure, like lunch at Grey Gables where some old friends can reflect upon the past, whilst still very much engaged with the preoccupations of the present."

Revisit Virginia McKenna's appearance on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

Listen to Virginia McKenna on Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

Catch up with Dead Girls Tell No Tales on BBC Radio 4 or download the podcast.

Read an interview with writer Joanna Toye.

Read listeners' memories of the death of Grace Archer.