An everyday tale of rural folk?

Rubbish, says David S. Taylor.

The Archers is a template for social revolution

Like many townies, I have a vague and romantic hankering after the rural life. Sadly, the less than bucolic surroundings of my Tower Hamlets pied-a-terre provide few opportunities to discuss crop rotation with hearty rustics or synchronise my body clock with the primal rhythms of the seasons. The dismal state of my bank balance makes it unlikely that I will be able to annex a sizeable chunk of the Cotswolds until well into the next millennium. So my place in the country, shared with millions of other country life wannabes, has been Ambridge, home to The Archers.

Ambridge seems a quiet sort of place. While the long suffering inhabitants of rural soap rival Emmerdale, inexplicably for the most part Cockneys transplanted to the Yorkshire Dales, daily confront air disasters, murder and simmering semi-incest, The Archers is reassuringly uneventful. Tragedy means the death of Jack Woolley's dog, Captain. For steamy sex, now a staple of all the other soaps, we get Lynda Snell giving husband Robert a full-body massage. Mercifully, the power of radio leaves this rather yucky sounding business entirely to the listener's imagination.

In short, the appeal of The Archers lies in its celebration of the mundane. Ambridge is a sanctuary, a homely unthreatening refuge where life is simple and uncomplicated. However, all is not as it seems. Tommy's organic sausages, the uneven performance of the village eleven and Susan Carter's consistent dreariness are mere window dressing. The underlying reality of The Archers is altogether more dark and sinister.

At first, I thought I must be imagining it. Occasionally an Ambridge stalwart would voice an opinion that didn't quite chime with their character. Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right, I would muse, before being swept back into the unfolding drama by some intriguing new twist of a bovine tuberculosis plot line.

But as the years passed I found it more and more difficult to ignore these strange deviations from form. Recently, for example, Jill Archer launched into a shrill tirade against private education, railing against Shula's decision to send Daniel to a prep school. This just didn't seem to fit with Jill's personality and background. Admittedly, Jill has done some fairly outlandish things in the past. Giving the twins futuristic sci-fi names like Kenton and Shula, more appropriate for Blake's Seven galactic bandits, for one. All the same, I did wonder. Mrs Archer, a mother to Ambridge and the nation, has an iconic status. Like members of the royal family, I felt sure that protocol should prevent her from speaking out on political matters. Yet here she was, championing state education with a vehemence not heard since the Red reign of the Inner London Education Authority. What could be happening?

Concerned, I reviewed similarly jarring episodes from the last year. With horrible clarity a pattern quickly emerged, one that pointed to a sinister hidden agenda on The Archers. I tried to deny it - but the evidence was overwhelming. Under its earthy patina of peculiar accents and milk quotas, The Archers was concealing a relentless propaganda campaign for alternative, and distinctly urban and anti-traditional, lifestyles and attitudes. Rather than the reliable friend of my fond, complacent belief, I have come to the inescapable conclusion that The Archers is instead a vehicle for subversive leftist dogma. Simply consider the facts:

Kate Aldridge, perhaps the most irritating and selfish adolescent on the radio since the entire cast of the mercifully shortlived Citizens, is not only tolerated, her brattishness and silly ideas about tepee birthing and dole-scrounging motorway protesters are actually validated by apparent stalwarts of Middle England such as Mrs Antrobus. Marjory is an important role model and opinion former for The Archers' sizeable middle-class youth audience, held captive in their parents' cars while queuing at cross-Channel ferry ports. Are we to look forward to an entire generation of Kate clones, terrorising their parents and setting up vegetarian peace camps in our comfortable suburban gardens?

Brian Aldridge, a paragon of mannish restraint and admirable capitalist instinct, is again and again portrayed as arch villain. One week persecuting the feckless Grundys - who frankly deserve everything they get - and the next planting fields of Frankenstein GM rape (and you don't need to be Germaine Greer to see the significance of his choice of crop). A callous patriarch, a robber baron - Brian represents the main thrust of The Archers' anti-business, antimasculinist agenda. If you still doubt, consider the track records of love rat capitalist running dogs Cameron Fraser and Simon Pemberton.

Surprisingly, the tiny community of Ambridge is host to three gay men: tempestuous Jean Paul de Grey Gables, sensible Sean at the Cat and Fiddle, and Nelson's mute son Shane. Given the size of the village this seems like a lot. More mysterious is why these chaps should want to live in this rural backwater. Where are the discotheques, the metropolitan fleshpots, the fashionable brasseries? Again, an example of The Archers insidious diffusion of a new model for rural life.

Then the 1998 Countryside March surely one of the most significant events for country people in many years - barely warranted a mention. Instead, in a stark demonstration of merciless revolutionary fervour, the programme-makers sought to distract us by assassinating Pat and Tony's son, John. The choice of this whining teenager as decoy showed just how clever and cynical these people can be. John's heavy breathing and constant tone of exasperation were rather wearing: for many listeners his departure came as a welcome release. And, of course, the programme makers could argue that John's demise was in the best didactic tradition of Reithian public service broadcasting, offering a valuable lesson in the hazards of driving an open Fergie tractor.

Even this cursory review of recent storylines reveals that The Archers is not so much a mirror of traditional rural life and values as a template for social revolution. Ironically, while Marx dismissed country matters as `the idiocy of rural life', a sinister cabal of leftist fifth columnists has seized this everyday tale of rural folk to proselytise for a new social order. Every day its steady drip, drip, drip of Guardianstyle attitudes and beliefs is gradually reprogramming the nation, shaping us all in the image of Islington Man. Marjory has gone over. Even Tommy, once a quiet adenoidal Young Farmer, has been transmuted into an unrepentant eco-warrior. Who will they convert next?

Perhaps I am being paranoid. But I tend to err on the side of caution - my memory of Katherine Ross's fate in The Stepford Wives is all too vivid. I am getting out of Ambridge before it's too late. I understand that Emmerdale is very nice at this time of year.

Copyright Spectator Jul 3, 1999
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