Mrs Bates

From "The Hotten Courier", Yorkshire Television "Emmerdale Farm" programme publicity, September 1984.

Mrs Bates, who arrived in Beckindale in 1984, had a broken marriage, two teenage children and a nightmare boss in Alan Turner at NY Estates. But she coped. The character's amusement at Alan's various acts of stupidity and her quiet, caring nature added a great deal of "must watch" factor to Emmerdale Farm.

Mrs Bates was not originally intended to be a major character, but Diana Davies added something to the role which ensured that she was. Richard Thorp (Alan Turner) recalls:

"Oh, Alan was an absolute stinker in the beginning, he rubbed everyone up the wrong way. The major influence on him was Mrs Bates who was played by Diana Davies. In the very first scene we did together I was losing my temper, ranting and raving, so she sent me up and it came across when we did the scene."

The Alan Turner/Mrs Bates NY Estates scenes were terrific to watch.

Mrs Bates ranks as one of my all-time favourite Beckindalers.

Diana Davies autograph from the 1980s.

The Tates In 1989

Tibbles has been in touch again to ask if I have a piccy of the Tates in 1989? This is one of the original publicity shots from that year.

From left to right they are: Frank Tate (Norman Bowler), Kim Tate (Claire King), Chris Tate (Peter Amory) and Zoe Tate (Leah Bracknell).

Note Kim's incredibly 1980s cardigan!

Seth and His Boss!

From the Yorkshire Evening Post's 1985 supplement - Emmerdale Farm 1,000!

Somebody recently turned to Stan Richards with a quizzical look and asked: "Why is it you talk right posh when you're on the telly?"

Stan, who is as much a part of Barnsley as Arthur Scargill's ceremonial pit lamp, couldn't come up with an answer.

Apart from the now legendary woolly hat and a change of spectacles, the real Stan Richards isn't very far removed from the fictitious Seth Armstrong of "Emmerdale Farm".

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two down-to-earth characters is all that Woolpack ale Seth pours down his neck. Stan can't stand the stuff.

He has to grin and bear it as he swigs his way through scene after scene in anguish with Amos.

But as soon as the cameras have stopped rolling he screws up his face in disgust and swills his gums with a glass of scotch.

Those gums have become his stock-in-trade, not only as a highly-popular Seth, but over more than 30 years they have made him a sought-after toothless grin around the working men's clubs of the North.

"It isn't a gimmick," he says. "I just don't like wearing false teeth. And now I don't have to."

The role of Seth has come like a pools win for the lad from the mining town who still calls corrugated iron "wriggly tin".

He was originally signed up for a mere five episodes. "They must have liked me because they kept asking me back," he says. He is now one of the series well-loved fixtures and fittings.

That unmistakable face, set off by a magnificent handlebar moustache, means a lot of writer's cramp signing autograph after autograph.

But Stan never grumbles. At 54 he remembers the days as a struggling stand-up comic.

Going even farther back, he recalls his start in showbusiness. At the age of 15, as a pupil of Barnsley Grammar School, he used to enjoy a pint and a Woodbine while playing the piano around local pubs.

One of his first jobs was as a Ministry of Labour clerk. But he was transferred to London, which didn't do for a pure-bred Northerner.

"I couldn't stand the place," he says. "I packed up my job and came home."

After that he went to work in the accounts department of the local disinfectant factory and that's where he remained until 1965, when he decided to go full-time professional as a solo comic.

Television bit parts bolstered his earnings and he now boasts of acting alongside Vanessa Redgrave and Dustin Hoffman.

That was a 10 -second appearance as an hotel porter in the film "Agatha".

He still keeps his hand in with working men's club dates, although it means strenuously long hours after doing a stint in the studios or on location.

Stan is a realist whose lifestyle has hardly altered since he found "Emmerdale" stardom.

"I was born and bred in Barnsley," he says with that pride which seems to accompany everyone who was born and bred there.

"To me it is the greatest place in the world. That is where I intend to stay.

"As far as the neighbours and my mates down the local are concerned, I'm still Stan Richards, an ordinary chap with a wife and six kids.

"I think they're all happy to see me successful. But nothing's changed."

He knows that one day Seth Armstrong or the series might cease to exist. As he tells his club audiences: "I used to be a clairvoyant, but I had to give it up due to unforeseen circumstances."

"You're a very, very nasty man," an elderly lady once told actor Richard Thorp as he sat in a genteel tea-room...

Richard, of course, is the "JR"-type manager of NY Estates in "Emmerdale Farm", but in reality he is a quietly-spoken, gentle man with a ready smile and a deep-throated chuckle.

Seth Armstrong's boss, and the bane of the gamekeeper's life, escapes to his beautiful old Tudor home in Sussex each weekend to join his wife, Noola, a TV floor manager.

The couple love animals and have two dogs, eight ducks, 14 chickens and numerous "wild" pets.

Richard tells an amusing "Emmerdale" story about a horse...

"I admit I'm a bit on the stout side and I had to get on a horse in one scene. The director said 'Action,' I hoisted myself into the saddle - and the entire production crew crew fell about laughing.

"I sat bemused until they explained that the horse, which was facing directly into the camera, had pulled a face when I climbed aboard."

The '80s Bad Boys Of Beckindale...

The first of the 1980s bad guys who brought a touch of the ruthless to Beckindale was one Alan Turner - manager of NY Estate's Beckindale venture at Home Farm.

Alan swept into Beckindale in 1982. He blustered and bullied, and was thoroughly grotty to his staff - which included Joe Sugden. Women like Barbara Peters, the vicar's glamorous daughter, who worked for a time as Alan's secretary, could see through him and, despite his romantic overtures, kept their distance.

Interviewed in 1993, Richard Thorp recalled the turning point in Alan's life...

"Oh, Alan was an absolute stinker in the beginning, he rubbed everyone up the wrong way. The major influence on him was Mrs Bates who was played by Diana Davies. In the very first scene we did together I was losing my temper, ranting and raving, so she sent me up and it came across when we did the scene."

Mrs Bates arrived in 1984 and simply couldn't keep a straight face...

And so Alan became a lovable, comic character...

Remember the time in 1986 when he went on a diet, bought an exercise bike, talking scales, and took up jogging? By the time he reached the Woolpack after his first jogging session, he was close to collapse - and in fact he did so as soon as he entered the pub, flopping inelegantly onto the floor before the startled regulars.

"My gaffer!" said Seth Armstrong.

"My floor!" said Amos Brearly, who'd just cleaned it.

Not all the Beckindale '80s baddies turned out to be good fun in the end. Harry Mowlam (Godfrey James) was a thoroughly nasty piece of work who brought much unhappiness to Matt and Dolly Skilbeck when they intervened over Harry's mistreatment of his dog.

Mr Mowlam then left the scene for a time, returned in 1985, and was soon involved in a security van robbery, netting £6000. Harry had a huge inferiority complex - he thought that the village, and the folk at Emmerdale Farm in particular, looked down on him. He plagued the vicar, the Rev Donald Hinton, with questions and statements about religion, was a generous buyer of drinks in the Woolpack, and had a sadistic streak a mile wide.

When Dolly miscarried the baby she was carrying in 1985, Harry was very much on the scene and Matt later confessed that he thought Harry was the cause of the miscarriage. In 1986, Matt treated several of Harry's ailing sheep - taking them up to Emmerdale to do so. Three of the sheep died, through no fault of Matt's, but Harry, who had not given permission for the sheeps' removal to Emmerdale in the first place, was furious.

He frightened Dolly further by accosting her in Beckindale, then stole several Emmerdale sheep to "make good" his loss. Unfortunately Matt caught him in the act.

"I'm gonna break your bloody back..."

A terrible fight took place, entirely initiated by Harry - at one point he seemed set to squeeze the life out of Matt with a fierce bear hug. Matt fought back, Harry tripped and fell backwards into the beck and Matt left him with Mowlam's comforting assurance "I'll 'ave you, Skilbeck!" ringing in his ears.

The next day, out on a walk, Henry Wilks found Harry dead.

Matt was accused of the crime and endured several months of hell until the true culprit, Harry Mowlam's accomplice Derek Warner (Dennis Blanche), confessed to the crime, holding the Rev Donald Hinton hostage at St Mary's Vicarage before finally giving himself up to the police.

Richard Franklin (formerly Mike Yates of "Dr Who") with Frazer Hines (formerly Jamie McCrimmon of "Dr Who"). Photograph courtesy of Bill Sands.

Next on the list of '80s baddies is businessman Denis Rigg - played by Richard Franklin.

Turning up in 1988, Denis wasted absolutely no time in making enemies. He was too old to be a yuppie, but he was, however, a ruthless old school businessman - not ashamed to use underhand methods to get his way.

His desire to turn part of the area, including Emmerdale Farm, into a quarry not surprisingly met with resistance from the Sugdens in 1989. Rigg used various devious and underhand tactics to "persuade" them, including trying to get their long-term friend Henry Wilks on his side. After years in business himself, Henry knew Rigg's type, told him so, and showed him the door.

Rigg went to the farm to continue his campaign, cornered Joe in an outbuilding, tried the sweet approach, then turned nasty. Unfortunately, Rigg's tone and animated manner upset Emmerdale's prize bull, which Joe was tending at the time. Rigg was crushed against the wall by the bull and died.

So, judging by Alan, Harry, Derek and Denis one can assume that Beckindale's '80s baddies either turned nice, disappeared to prison never to return or got bumped off. But that's not absolutely true...

This man arrived to work as auctioneer at Hotten Market in 1986, and judging from his manner to his assistant, Sandie Merrick, right from the first, would not be qualifying for any Charmer of the Year awards.

Smiling in triumph in 1989, Eric Pollard's reign of rottenness was only just beginning as the show leapt into the increasingly far fetched '90s...

And no, he's never turned nice, never disappeared into prison forever, and never got "bumped off". Eric Pollard is one '80s Beckindale bad guy who still runs rampant - over twenty years after his debut.

Said Christopher Chittell of the role:

"There are certain destructive elements in all of us which we try to keep subdued, but they raise their ugly heads from time to time..."