1986: Jack Sugden In A Witty TV Times...

This clipping from the TV Times, 27 Sept to Oct 3 1986, makes me smile.

One man went to mow... Jack Sugden (Clive Hornby) deals with whatever crops up in 'Emmerdale Farm'.

Whatever CROPS up, geddit?!!

And what was happening in Beckindale that week?

Well, on Tuesday 30 September we discover:

Joe Sugden makes a big decision about his future, but there could be even bigger decisions ahead for Phil Pearce and Sandie Merrick.

And on 2 October:

Amos believes he is the victim of a gypsy's curse - and Seth Armstrong is more than willing to lend a hand to the supernatural.

Brilliant!

The cast for the week was:

Annie Sugden - Sheila Mercier
Matt Skilbeck - Frederick Pyne
Amos Brearly - Ronald Magill
Henry Wilks - Arthur Pentelow
Jack Sugden - Clive Hornby
Joe Sugden - Frazer Hines
Dolly Skilbeck - Jean Rogers
Sam Skilbeck - Benjamin Whitehead
Jackie Merrick - Ian Sharrock
Sandie Merrick - Jane Hutcheson
Alan Turner - Richard Thorp
Seth Armstrong - Stan Richards
Mrs Bates - Diana Davies
Kathy Bates - Malandra Burrows
Nick Bates - Cy Chadwick
Phil Pearce - Peter Alexander
Eric Pollard - Christopher Chittell
Jock MacDonald - Drew Dawson
Bill Middleton - Johhny Caesar
Gypsy woman - Clare Kelly
Gypsy man - Craig Fairbrass

E-Mails - Edward Peel As Tom Merrick, The Missing Merrick, And Meg Armstrong

1985 Emmerdale tribute article. Intense and snarling - Edward Peel took on the revised role of Tom Merrick in 1980, to be followed by Jack Carr a few years later. The fact that David Hill had once played a lazy, twisting version of Tom Merrick years before had been forgotten.

Maria has written:

I liked your post about the Merrick family. I used to lust after Edward Peel's Tom Merrick! I remember David Hill in the role, and, not to be rude, he was neither smouldering or attractive! Mr Peel had it all - a devious bad boy we ladies could love! Characters were often rewritten in Emmerdale Farm, weren't they? Ruth Merrick became Pat, and nobody could say she was chosen to look like the previous actress in the role. The same, as I've already mentioned, with Edward's Tom. I also recall the Merricks had three children originally, but in 1980 one of them was simply written out of existence. Ursula Camm's Meg Armstrong was also very different to Ruth's Holden's Meg in 1986. Ursula's was quiet, unhappy and stay at home, Ruth's was loud, eccentric and out and about. Great blog to read. I'm a long-time fan. Keep up the good work!

Thanks, Maria!

The Merricks had originally been a brief, "passing through" story - and when they were revamped in 1980, the writers transformed them into an interesting long term story-line concept. Edward Peel, of course, did not resemble the original Tom (David Hill) and Helen Weir did not resemble the original Ruth Merrick (Lynn Dalby).

In particular, Edward Peel's Tom had a snarling intensity that had previously been completely lacking.

Interviewed about his role as Tom years later, Mr Peel played down his impact, saying that Tom was simply up to his old tricks, but comparing episodes with David Hill and Edward Peel reveals that the character had become a lot more menacing and downright angry in the Edward Peel era.

It must be remembered that the Merrick family had previously featured as a short story-line eight years before, when VCRs were unknown in the UK, so viewers were not able to check what the family was originally like - although the Emmerdale Farm novels by Lee Mackenzie faithfully recorded the original facts about them, third child and all.

I don't know why Ruth's first name was changed to Pat - although at Pat's wedding to Jack in 1982, it was revealed that her full Christian names were Patricia Ruth, it didn't quite add up.

Whilst Coronation Street employed an archivist and most past story-line facts were rigidly adhered to (there were howls of protest when the age of Ken Barlow's twin children was altered to fit in with a story-line in 1978), Emmerdale Farm took a slightly more relaxed approach to its past.

As for Meg Armstrong - I think that the downtrodden Meg character, as played by Ursula Camm, had been taken as far as it could go, and that's why the character was so drastically altered in 1986.

Emmerdale Farm was never afraid to rewrite bits and pieces of its history!

Left: Ursula Camm as Meg Armstrong in 1983: downtrodden and frankly fed up with Seth's drinking, she locked him out of their home. Right: Ruth Holden was the new Meg Armstrong in 1986: chirpy, religious, and absolutely barking, she terrified Amos Brearly when she worked at The Woolpack for a while, told Mr Wilks that one of her favourite hymns was called "The Ship Of Temperance Is Sailing To The Port", and called Seth "poppet".

Eric Pollard - A Request...

Fiona writes to say:

Sheep are sheep, cows are cows, Amos is Amos and Walter is Walter, but can we cut to the chase and have a decent screen grab of the divine Chris Chittell as Eric Pollard, as he was when he first appeared in the 1980s?

You can, Fiona - above you'll find a screen capture of Eric on his very first visit to The Woolpack in 1986.

Uttered In The '80s Part 4 - Eric Pollard And Sandie Merrick - Home Truths?

It was good old Joe Sugden (Frazer Hines) who initially unleashed Eric Pollard (Christopher Chittell) on to the Beckindale district way back in 1986. When Joe turned down his step-niece Sandie Merrick (Jane Hutcheson) for the post of auctioneer at Hotten Market, and employed Pollard instead, he had no idea of just what he was setting in motion.

In 1987, Pollard faced the sack for being "on the fiddle". He blamed Sandie, believing that she had blabbed to Joe simply because she was after his job:

"Take it! It's yours. I would tell you where to put it, but I think a woman of your... morals can probably work it out for yourself!"

It might have been the end of Eric's job... but his reign as Beckindale's man-you-love-to-hate was only just beginning...

Helen Weir On Pat Sugden And Emmerdale Farm In The 1980s...

Pat gives Jack some highly significant news in December 1981.

Ah, the Merricks!

The Merricks?

Yes, the Merricks - a family that made a major impact on Emmerdale Farm from 1980-1989. They weren't there at the beginning of the decade. And, apart from Jackie Merrick's young widow, Kathy, shortly to remarry and change her surname, they weren't there at the end of the decade, either.

The Merricks began life in the early days of lunch time soap Emmerdale Farm in 1972. Ruth Merrick was the wife of yobbish Tom, and they (apparently) had three children. However, it seemed that the father of Jack/Jackie, the oldest child, was actually Jack Sugden...

After a few episodes, the Merricks left the village. Ruth returned briefly once, yobbish Tom returned once or twice, but apart from that the village was Merrick-less.

Fast forward to 1980 and the Merricks returned to Beckindale. Not that you'd have recognised them: Ruth Merrick was now called Pat (it was revealed in 1982 that her full name was Patricia Ruth Merrick, but that didn't really explain her sudden change of Christian name), she now had two children, not three, and the whole family, including Tom who only appeared intermittently, had been recast. Edward Peel, who stepped into Tom's shoes in late 1980, gave the character an intense and sneering edge previously unseen - and highly memorable!

By the end of the 1980s the new Merricks were no more. Pat and son Jackie (Ian Sharrock) were dead, and Pat's daughter Sandie (Jane Hutcheson) had moved away. Yobbish Tom (who had undergone another change of actor during the decade, morphing into Jack Carr) had no further reason to visit the village.

But the Merricks had packed an awful lot of action into the 1980s.

Helen Weir (Pat) recalled those days in a recent article in the Northern Echo:

HELEN Weir was married to on-screen husband Clive Hornby, who died last year while still playing the role of Jack Sugden. The couple divorced offscreen nine years ago and had a son, Thomas.

She took over the role of Pat Sugden for six years from 1980 and has fond memories of Toke Townley, who played Sam Pearson for 12 years.

“It’s been a long time since I was in it and I’m not saying it was better or worse, but it was definitely about the country. I was brought up in Yorkshire on Ilkley Moor and I loved working with the animals and, as Pat Sugden, I’d have my arm inside a cow bringing out a calf.

“But I did also have to be seen milking and the cows were always treading on my toes and virtually sitting on me while I was sitting on a three-legged stool.

“Clive was one of the mainstays of the programme and I think it was wonderful he was in the series for so long. His character went through so many trials and tribulations. He had so many ladies and actually had a lady friend before my character. In fact my character’s name was Ruth before I came into it and then it was changed to Pat. I think the way they held the funeral for Jack in Emmerdale was the most delicate way they could handle his death,”

says Weir.

Her character departed the series in 1986 after fatally swerving her car to avoid sheep on the road. “When people see me they say ‘when are you coming back?’ and I reply ‘I can’t because I went over the hill in my car’. It is quite strange filming your own demise,” Weir says.

Pat was a splendid character - and Helen Weir played her to perfection. We fondly remember her careworn days of living in the NY Estates caravan with Jackie and Sandie, her marriage to Jack, and her resolute refusal to be a domestic paragon of virtue like Annie. Dolly and Pat got on each other's nerves at times, and Pat certainly didn't see why she should always wash up the cups before the plates.

Her breakout from the kitchen to help the men with the farm work, and her strength during the Jack/Karen adultery story-line of 1984, were both loudly applauded by we Buglers of Beckindale.

Our best wishes to Helen Weir in all her future endeavours.

A Warm Welcome At The Woolpack...

The title banner from The Hotten Courier, official YTV publicity information, May 1st 1986. Fiction jostled with fact as the YTV version of The Courier, which was of course based on the fictitious newspaper featured in the series, covered news from the TV programme - cast characters, production team, etc - and was not focused on the unreal world of Beckindale. And yet it contained advertisements, just as the fictional Courier might do, for those arch rival hostelries - The Woolpack and The Malt Shovel - it even included the telephone numbers: The Woolpack's was Beckindale 828 and The Shovel's Beckindale 808!

"There's always a warm welcome at The Woolpack"...

Hmmm...

Yes...

I see what they mean...

Walter enjoys a Woolpack warm welcome.

The Woolpack, with Amos as landlord, was never the most convivial place: in the first eight years of the show, Amos was dour and sour, a gossip and given to puffing himself up like a peacock. Who wanted to spend the evenings with the likes of him and pay for the privilege?!

In 1980, Ronald Magill took Amos up to a new peak - he became less dour, but louder, more animated, more fad-ridden, more pompous, more prickly, more nosey... more everything! The old Amos could display sound commonsense at times. The '80s Amos was usually absolutely bonkers! I believe that the arrival of Seth Armstrong as a full-time Woolpack regular, plus the arrival of Al Dixon as Walter, and Amos gaining an allotment - all events of 1980 - contributed enormously to Mr B's increased oddness.

But he was a sweet, innocent soul underneath. I suppose that's why we loved him.

Who Is She?

Meg and Seth in 1986.

"Who is the smiling dark haired lady with the hat in your new blog title ident?" asks Debbie from Peterborough.

She is Meg Armstrong, wife of gamekeeper Seth - and the character's second incarnation. She was originally played by Ursula Camm as a down to earth and slightly downtrodden homebody. In 1986, Ruth Holden took over the role and the character was rewritten as a cheery nutcase, with a passion for good Christian living and cleaning!

Read about the two faces of Meg Armstrong here.

Uttered In The '80s Part Two...

"I'm that hungry I'd eat the oven door if it were buttered!" -

Amos Brearly, 1986.

Harry Mowlam: Brute Of Beckindale

Ah, Beckindale in the early-to-mid 1980s...

Annie at her Aga, Amos behind the bar at the Woolpack, the Rev Donald Hinton being concerned for the spiritual welfare of his flock, our Jackie making a mess of things, Grandad Pearson making a crib for the Christmas nativity, Jack and Matt creosoting a fence and talking about the meaning of life...

1980s? Some said it was so sleepy it could almost have been the 1880s! As one viewer told Toke Townley: "Emmerdale Farm isn't about how life is, it's about how life should be."

Then, BANG! POW! the late 20th Century burst in, turning village life upside down, in the shape of Harry Mowlam.

Harry had a brief innings in the show in late 1983 and early 1984, when Matt and Dolly fell out with him over his mistreatment of his dog. But in 1985 he blew back in to Beckindale - worse than ever, chip firmly on shoulder.

Mr Mowlam had a cruel, villainous streak a mile wide and was quickly involved in a security van robbery.

As 1986 began, the man turned his venom back on to the Skilbecks - and finally there was a terrible fight with Matt, entirely initiated by Mr Mowlam, and the man ended up dead, with Matt accused of his murder...

Life in Beckindale had never been absolutely cosy - the early years of the programme had featured murder, suicide, rape, a teenage pregnancy, adultery, arson and a gun hold up. But Beckindale had never seen the likes of Harry Mowlam before.

The part was an acting triumph for Godfrey James - Mowlam, whether wallowing in self pity, bantering in the Woolpack, battering Matt Skilbeck or menacing Dolly, was absolutely believable, a bearded hulk of a man, as turbulent and changeable as the Yorkshire weather. And thoroughly twisted.

From the Yorkshire Evening Post Emmerdale Farm 1,000! supplement, 1985:

He's the nastiest man ever to walk the streets of Beckindale. A big, bearded loudmouth whose loathsome behaviour earned him a smack across the face from Dolly Skilbeck.

Godfrey James, who plays the hated Harry Mowlam, has even been spat at in the street by real-life old ladies who take exception to Harry's wild antics on the box.

"Mowlam is thoroughly hated," said Godfrey. "He's a nutcase. He's a bit touched."

Playing the villain comes easy to the surprisingly mild-mannered Godfrey. Off-screen, he's nothing like the man who gets up the noses of everybody down on the farm.

But bad guy parts have regularly come his way in films and TV.

And he's so convincing, it often lands him in trouble with people who can't tell the difference between fiction and reality.

He might have got spat at for looking like Mowlam, but his part as a hard man in "The Sweeney" almost got him beaten up in a London pub.

"I was down in the East End when these characters tried to have a go at me," he says. "They wanted to see how tough I was."

The East End is Godfrey's home ground. He was born there 54 years ago, the son of a greengrocer who, he says, "didn't like the idea of me becoming a woofter actor."

After a brief stint as Harry in Emmerdale Farm, Godfrey James was invited back a couple of years later for a longer run.

Filming in Yorkshire means long spells away from his home in Pevensey Bay, East Sussex, where he lives with his wife Vivienne - "she's a cracker" - and spends his leisure time at sea in his own fishing smack.

They've been married for 32 years and have a daughter, Tracy, 24, named after the film star Spencer Tracy. She works as a nurse.

He doesn't like hotels, so he's brought his caravan north and let it come to rest in a pub car park.

He's managed to convince the regulars that he's not quite as distasteful as Harry Mowlam. They even play dominoes with him.

You Love 1986

Thanks to everybody who voted in my recent poll. Your favourite '80s year of Emmerdale Farm action appears to be 1986 - the year of Meg Armstrong, Harry Mowlam, Eric Pollard, Walter's departure and Pat's death. The year Seth Armstrong cheated at the Woolpack Vs Malt Shovel Dominoes Tournament and Joe Sugden had an affair with Karen Moore. The year Sandie Merrick began her affair with Phil Pearce and Jackie Merrick lost Sita Sharma.

The results are:

1986 - 18 votes

1984 - 16 votes

1989 - 14 votes

1980 and 1987 - both had 8 votes

1988 - 6 votes

1985 - 5 votes

1982 - 4 votes

1981 and 1983 - 1 vote each!

Beckindale Youth - 1986

A schoolgirl in 1980, Sandie Merrick was apparently aged around thirty in 1986.

Was there ever a girl who was old before her time more than Sandie Merrick? The traumas she suffered - getting pregnant by Andy Longthorn at the age of eighteen, the loss of her mother when she was around twenty-one, and the beginnings of her affair with married builder Phil Pearce just afterwards prematurely turned her into a right old fogey. But not a very wise one as it turned out.

Even back in the caravan days of the early 1980s, Sandie seemed a stabilising influence on Pat and Jackie, almost a maternal influence herself. And, having become pregnant by Andy Longthorn in 1983, she was sensible about the baby after a brief period of going to pieces. She was a realistic character - Sandie had learned to be a coper because of her difficult childhood.

But her musical tastes were wildly inconsistent. Whilst Nick Bates taunted sister Kathy about having Bay City Rollers LPs when she was a little girl, Phil Pearce, chatting to Sandie on a cosy evening at Demdyke, harked back to some wonderful old R'n'B records a lad at the local Scout Hut had played him back in his own 1960s youth period - which had encouraged him and some of the other boys to form a short-lived band.

Sandie told Phil she went back as far as David Bowie and the late Bob Marley - which wasn't actually that far at the time as both had had major UK chart hits in the early 1980s. But these were both considered "serious" pop people and Sandie omitted to mention her "wild" times at the Vicarage (when the Rev Hinton was out) whooping it up to Shakin' Stevens with Jackie and Andy c. 1982.

Because of her attitude, her lack of teen/early twenty-something silliness, her world weariness, the fact that she preferred sitting in the Woolpack to night clubbing, I somehow got the feeling that Sandie was not referring to going back as far as Ashes To Ashes in 1980, but Bowie's debut with Space Oddity in 1969!

Sandie had no recollections to offer Phil of the 1970s 1950s-style pop idols in her not-so-dim and distant childhood either - no dewy-eyed recall of screeching at Alvin Stardust, Mud, the Rubettes, the Rollers or even Racey on Top Of The Pops. She wasn't even a Donny fan as a little 'un it seemed. She was terribly serious and out of her own age range.

I liked the character of Sandie, but there were times when I felt, as with many youthful characters in Emmerdale Farm and Coronation Street in the 1970s and 1980s, that the performer behind the character should have been a little more similar in age and/or the writers should have been a little more aware of current trends. Jane Hutcheson was somewhat older than the character she portrayed and often Sandie seemed of a similar age.

I was a contemporary of the Sandie Merrick character, as was my peer group at the time, and it was a lot more fun going out to "Nite Spots" and dancing to the likes of Noo Shooz and the Pet Shop Boys than sitting in Demdyke Row wittering on about David Bowie with somebody else's spouse who also happened to be at least ten years your senior.

Silly Sandie!

Mind you, the character Rosemary Kendall, who moped around the farm for a while in the '70s, seemed even more out of date.

In the 1980s, Archie Brooks - the lovely layabout with the off-beat '80s dress-sense, constantly proclaiming his strong (Old Labour) Socialist principles, was a Beckindale character I recognised from real-life people around me. Archie was very cutting edge for a soap.

So, as far as Emmerdale Farm's representation of youth was concerned, all in all, things were certainly looking up in the '80s.

It beat the teens-written-by-forty-somethings inhabiting Coronation Street during that era hollow.

But if only Sandie hadn't gone from eighteen to thirty in about a year.

When she became involved with Phil Pearce I felt that the character lost all credibility, any commonsense she had possessed had completely gone to the wall, and she was now just a vehicle for a cheap storyline. Onscreen, it seemed that Sandie was simply courting trouble for the sake of it, the storyline felt manufactured (rather like the relationship between Joe and Karen Moore earlier in the year) simply to plug gaps in the air time.

With Sandie we now had the worst of both worlds. Her character was flat and too mature for her age, yet she had a childish lack of sense when it came to romance.

It was a shame that Sandie was used in this way. If the production team had thought things through just a little more, I'm convinced that the character could have become one of the strongest in the show.

And I would have loved to have seen her bopping to Opportunities - Let's Make Lots Of Money in deelyboppers and shoulder pads at Blimps Nite Spot in Hotten.

Just once.

Down with Thatcher! Down with capitalism! No Nukes! Archie Brooks (Tony Pitts)- '80s activist and layabout, was an inspired creation. He's seen here with the enjoyably stroppy and clumsy Jackie Merrick and smoothy boy Terence Turner in 1985.

1986: A Fond Farewell To Walter!

Al Dixon as Walter in one of his last "Emmerdale Farm" appearances in 1985.

Al Dixon became the Woolpack's second Walter in September 1980 - rather quirkier than the first, and also rather more silent! Mr Dixon, from his debut onwards, stood out as a memorable face in The Woolpack crowd.

The second Walter became a much loved feature of the series. Then, in the autumn of 1985, Al Dixon suffered a stroke. It was hoped, initially, that he would recover and be able to return to the Woolpack bar in the near future. In the meantime, advance location filming kept Walter on screen (outside the Woolpack and at the village hall) until Christmas.

A cover story was needed to explain Walter's absence at the Woolpack. In an episode broadcast in January 1986, Harry Mowlam commented: "No Walter today?"

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Amos: "Nay, 'e's not 'ere."

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Harry: "So I can see."

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Amos: "Walter, I regret to say, has gone down South - Worthing. Humph! He'll be there weeks an' all. Oh, I know 'e'll be glad to see 'is sister, but I'm not sure what 'e'll make of all them fancy licenced 'ouses down there - I think yer know what I mean!"

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Al Dixon's death in March 1986 put paid to any hopes of a return to Beckindale for Walter.

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As far as I know, Walter was not killed off in the show.

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So, I'm left to conclude that the Sussex sea air, the Worthing public houses and his sister's cooking were very much to his liking!

Oh No - It's Harry Mowlam!

TV Times, 31 August - 6 September 1985. Quarryman Harry Mowlam (Godfrey James) is back for another stint in Emmerdale Farm. Mr Mowlam first appeared in a storyline in which he mistreated his dog, and ended up clashing with Matt and Dolly Skilbeck.

In 1985, his return heralded more trouble for Matt and Dolly - Mowlam made improper advances to Dolly and, shortly afterwards, she suffered a miscarriage. Mowlam had other irons in the fire - he was one of the crooks in a storyline about a security van robbery, which spilled over into 1986. After the robbery, Mr Mowlam was murdered by his associate Derek Warner, who ended up holding the vicar, the Reverend Donald Hinton, hostage at gunpoint.

Whilst Derek Warner seemed a sad, desperate and inadequate man, worthy of some sympathy at least, Harry Mowlam had been a complete and utter swine and was not mourned in Beckindale.

Matt Skilbeck was originally accused of Mowlam's murder, and the threat of a prison sentence hung over him until the true culprit was discovered.

Matt found it difficult to join in the celebrations which followed. Why should he celebrate the fact that his liberty was no longer threatened when it should never have been threatened in the first place? He brooded long and hard, but finally bucked his ideas up when he realised the effect his depression was having on those closest to him, particularly Dolly.

Note: Emmerdale Farm was still being shown at 5.15pm in the Anglia TV region and was returning for a "new series".

Meg Armstrong

That well known Beckindale poacher-turned-gamekeeper Seth Armstrong lived in Demdyke Row, and was married to long suffering Meg.

I don’t know when Meg first appeared, but I note that in episodes I have on DVD from 1980 and 1983 she was played by Ursula Camm. Meg was a practical, down-to-earth Yorkshire woman, faintly down-trodden, but always dutiful when it came to Seth - whose idea of heaven came in a pint pot at the Woolpack bar.

Meanwhile, Meg would be keeping his tea warm in the oven and sitting home alone watching the telly.

In 1983, Meg could take no more and Seth was rattled by her sudden demands that he appreciate her a little more and treat her a little better. So rattled was Seth that he even attended church with Meg one Sunday.

A fine sermon on marriage from the Rev Hinton had no impact at all. Having attended church for Meg, Seth considered his duty done, and was shocked when Meg gave him a ultimatum in front of the assembled regulars in the Woolpack: either go home with her for his dinner, or she’d FINISHED with him - he’d be locked out.

Seth called Meg’s bluff and ended up sleeping rough for several nights, cadging breakfasts from Annie Sugden up at Emmerdale Farm. Finally, a dressing-down from stand-in vicar Edward Ruskin, Beckindale’s permanent vicar some years before, persuaded Seth to take stock. He took Meg a bottle of something nice home and peace was declared, although Meg also declared the end of her doormat existence by taking a holiday abroad with a friend.

The next encounter with Meg in my Emmerdale Farm DVD collection occurred in 1986 when Amos and Mr Wilks took her on to clean and help out behind the bar at the Woolpack. This Meg was a different woman - literally. Actress Ruth Holden, formerly Ena Sharples’ daughter, the down-trodden Vera Lomax in Coronation Street, stepped into the role.

Meg’s character changed too - she was jolly, but bossy, obsessed with cleanliness and her Christian faith. This Meg shocked Woolpack regulars by putting no smoking request notices on the pub tables and sometimes refusing to serve them drinks if she thought they were drinking too quickly. She also called a halt to the dominoes tournament with the Malt Shovel when things got acrimonious (thanks to Seth cheating, it later turned out).

Best of all, she called Seth “poppet”!

Obviously, she couldn’t stay at the Woolpack: she washed Mr Wilk’s best pipe, absolutely ruining it, and made the place smell terrible with her various cleaning concoctions, containing such fragrant delights as spirit of camphor and ammonia!

Amos was too scared of her to ask her to leave but after the dominoes debacle Meg took matters into her own hands and resigned!

"That's quite enough out of you, poppet!"

Meg Armstrong appeared only rarely in the Emmerdale saga. The character died in 1993.

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Amos Brearly Meets Angie Watts

From the Sun, July 28, 1986:

Remember all the charity events of the 1980s? You couldn't turn round without colliding with a sponsored walk, a sponsored silence, a sponsored bean scoff, a telethon, a walkathon, a talkathon, a bonkathon (you should be so lucky), etc, etc. This particular event, part of Soap Aid, seems to have been a bit of a wash-out, but it's good to see Amos (Ronald Magill), Seth (Stan Richards) and Dolly (Jean Rogers) hobnobbing with Angie (Anita Dobson) and 'Chelle (Susan Tully).

1986: The Night The Mobile Phone Arrived In Beckindale...

A freezing cold night in 1986, with snow on the ground, and a figure came running down from The Struggle...

... and into the village of Beckindale.

Young Kathy Bates (Malandra Burrows) emerged from her mother's house to fetch something from the car and heard the sound of metal dustbins clattering and a cat yowling. She paused, alarmed. But everything was still.

At the Woolpack...

... Amos (Ronald Magill) was unhappy. He was suffering from conjunctivitis (or "conjunc-tia-vities" as he called it), hence his pirate-style eye patch...

... and Seth (Stan Richards) never tired of teasing him about it.

Having left the pub, Seth started for home...

... and was surprised when two police cars come roaring into the village, sirens going "nee-norr"...

Seth never liked to mix with the police. This feeling got the better of his curiosity and he continued on home.

Curtains twitched at the Woolpack as the police arrived there. The regulars were told that a dangerous man was on the loose.

Over at the village church, the Reverend Donald Hinton (Hugh Manning), locking up for the night, was startled when Derek Warner (Dennis Blanche) jumped out on him, brandishing a shot gun.

At the vicarage, Derek told Donald Hinton that he was the killer of local Mr Nasty Harry Mowlam (Godfrey James)...

A siege was underway, Derek told the vicar he could leave, but the Rev Hinton, stirred by his plight, decided to stay and talk to him. Outside, the police wanted to phone the vicarage and on came a hand-held mobile phone!

It was a Motorola analogue model - state of the art. The first mobile phone call in England - indeed the whole of Britain, had been made by comedian Ernie Wise at St Katherine's Dock, London, on 1 January 1985. The very first commercially available hand-helds had been unveiled by Motorola in 1983. They were hugely expensive and many of us dismissed them: "Yuppie toys - ridiculous, haven't they ever heard of phone boxes?!!"

So, the first sighting of a hand-held mobile in Emmerdale Farm was quite a milestone in the serial's history!

Back to the storyline, and the assembled police (including village bobby Sergeant MacArthur, played by Ian Dale) awaited developments at the vicarage. Finally, Derek emerged with the vicar, and was hustled away by police officers.

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Life in Beckindale soon settled down again, but the glimpse of the mobile phone was an indication that a great technological change was soon to impact on everyday life in the village. And everywhere else!

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When you add to that the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners Lee in 1989, which brought the Internet into all our homes in the 1990s, and the arrival of Sky TV, also in 1989, it seems surprising just how recent the advent of the technology we now take for granted actually was.

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Read more about the arrival of mobile phones in the 1980s here.

Sorting Fact From Fiction...

Peter Alexander as Phil Pearce.

From the Sun, October 4, 1986 - this is another instance of soap fiction and real life becoming hopelessly mixed up!