The Archers fan who took a trip to Ambridge

Through the first ever Birmingham Writer in Residence scheme, Caroline Horton has spent time learning how The Archers is made. Here, she shares her experience of going behind the curtain of the world's longest running drama. 

"Are you a listener?" I nodded. I enjoy the sense of home that a room of like-minded addicts can offer. I was also quietly delighted that this particular guilty pleasure seemed to be a job for the next six months.

My Archers habit started early, as a kid, the first twelve minutes of dinner was eaten in deferential silence as we listened. I grew up in the Midlands village of Upper Longdon, so our nightly ritual also corroborated my assumption that we lived at the centre of the universe. I listened and recognised it all; Ambridge blurring with Longdon. I also remember my surprise that Borsetshire and Felpersham had been ‘missed off’ Mum’s road atlas, only somewhat reassured to spot Daventry.

I’ve listened ever since, covertly after leaving home, lowering the volume so my flatmates didn’t hear the theme tune. The familiar voices salved my bouts of homesickness and I missed it when I moved to Paris, the way other expats seemed to miss breakfast tea or Marmite. Back in 2005 you couldn’t listen abroad and phone calls home ran - how are you and what’s happened on The Archers?

Particular storylines have stayed with me: Helen’s anorexia; Ian and Adam’s love story; the foot and mouth epidemic as I watched it drive farms out of business around our village, and of course, more recently, Helen and Rob’s relationship as it slowly unravelled.

As with my time on Doctors and Home Front, the busy Archers team was incredibly generous with their time and energy. Over the months, I sat in on story meetings; shadowed the noting of synopses and draft scripts and watched recordings and edits in the Birmingham studios, before going on to write dummy synopses and episodes.

I saw first hand the collaboration between different parts of the team; the skill required to capture each distinctive voice and to keep different story threads alive, whilst not overloading individual episodes. Most of all, I saw the opportunity offered by such a long-running, continuing drama to explore issues over months and years; charting the ebb and flow of characters and relationships over entire lifespans.

The Midlands might not have quite the status that my ten-year-old Archers-addicted self imagined, but the hope, which I share, is that initiatives like this lead to more radio drama coming out of the Birmingham studios and more Midlands voices being heard on the BBC.