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".

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.

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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Seth Armstrong

A signed photograph of Stan Richards as Seth from the 1980s. Did you know that before the 1980s signed photographs of UK soap stars issued by individual TV companies were always black and white? It was several years into the 1980s before they were updated to colour!

Seth Armstrong was originally supposed to be a one story character. In the 1970s many characters (some of them Beckindale locals) were brought into the series just for one story-line and never seen again. And then came Seth in 1978. He was originally a temporary bit-part. But then actor Stan Richards, who played Seth, was asked back for a few more story-lines. The character became a full-time regular in mid-1980.

"Seth was supposed to be a five episode wonder, but I soon realised his potential," said Stan Richards in the Sunday People article from April 1985, pictured above. Fortune was on both Seth and Stan's side as Anne W Gibbons, Emmerdale Farm producer from 1979 to 1983, decided to build up the cast of regular characters and Seth became a fully fledged Beckindaler, bedding down in the 1980s to become one of the show's best-loved characters.

In 1980, Amos Brearly commented disapprovingly on Seth's loyalty to the Malt Shovel, the Woolpack's rival pub. But that was soon to change, and Seth became a Woolpack regular. There was much sport to be had there. Amos soon found himself wound up left, right and centre by the wily gamekeeper!

When Alan Turner was appointed manager of NY Estates' Beckindale holding in 1982, it was fun, fun, fun! He and Seth soon became one one of the funniest double acts in soap history!

And, as with the redoubtable Mr Brearly, it was Seth's skills as a wind-up merchant that provided a lot of the laughs (for the viewers and Mrs Bates, not for Mr Turner!) at NY Estates.