"Of course, that’s not what happened at all," said Ysanne Churchman with a smile. "Would you like me to tell you how it really was?" You bet we would! Sean O'Connor, former Editor of The Archers, and I had gone to see the 91-year-old actress precisely to hear her side of the story.
"Dead girls tell no tales," she’d said enigmatically to reporters after her character Grace Archer’s sensational death in a fire at the riding stables on 22 September 1955, a death which had had listeners weeping in the streets, jammed the BBC switchboard and wiped the launch night of ITV off the next day’s front pages.
Sean and I sat back and listened to Ysanne and by the time we left her flat we had not just the title of the Radio 4 drama I was to write to mark the 60th anniversary of Grace Archer’s dramatic demise, but a set of astonishing revelations.
The CD/download release of the play and the original omnibus of the week of Grace’s death couldn’t be better timed, coming so soon after Jill banned Pip’s boyfriend Toby from her birthday tea. Jill’s excuse was that she hadn’t personally invited him – nothing to do, then, with the fact that Grace, nee Fairbrother, was Phil’s first wife, and Toby’s the son of Grace’s half-brother Robin. Fairbrother ghosts still stalk the lanes of Ambridge, it seems.
Read more about Jill's problem with the Fairbrothers
There’s a third CD/download in this new collection as well, which reflects Ambridge in happier times. A compendium of Christmas scenes in which Ambridge residents remember events of the past. They include long-dead characters such as Sid and Polly Perks, Walter Gabriel and Tom Forrest but also a new generation – a baby Debbie Aldridge and a sulky teenage Shula Archer, played then as now by Judy Bennett.
Dan and Doris Archer feature as well, of course, in cosy domestic scenes. As Dan brings Doris a cup of tea on Christmas morning, she remarks that it tastes good. "You know why that is, don’t you?" he replies. "It’s made with love." Aww. Just like The Archers itself.
Joanna Toye has more than 30 years of experience in writing The Archers
