大象传媒

In 1957 Patricia Greene was told she had six weeks work with The Archers as a . She was cast as Jill Patterson, a love interest for Ambridge’s young (and recently widowed) hero, Phil Archer.

Sixty years on, Patricia (known to everyone as Paddy) remains a key member of the cast with her character now matriarch of the eponymous Archer family. No other actor has continuously played the same role longer than Paddy.

Listening back to shows how much women’s lives have changed over the last sixty years.

In 1959 Jill was pregnant again, five months after giving birth to twins Shula and Kenton. When she told Phil the news, he asked her if she was happy to be pregnant again so soon. She told him she had everything she ever wanted.

“The one thing I always dreamt of was a husband, a home and a family of my very own."

Thinking back to her character's early days, Paddy believes that Jill was "damaged". She adds; “She was looking for roots. Otherwise she surely wouldn’t have married him so quickly."

After sixty years in Ambridge, the place would not be the same without Jill. But she started life there as an outsider - a new face in the Ambridge environs. Paddy says that's one of the reasons why The Archers team married Jill and Phil.

"She could ask questions about agriculture. She was really out of her element. She knew nothing of the countryside and she was suddenly thrown into this village", says Paddy.

While talking to about playing Jill for sixty years, Paddy heard her earliest available archive for the first time since she recorded it. The sound of her voice from sixty years ago surprised her. “It must be somebody else, that certainly wasn’t me!”, she says.

From the beginning, Jill has embodied a housewife ideal. She wanted a family, had no trouble getting pregnant, and was exceptionally capable in the kitchen. She deferred to her husband but also spoke her mind when he needed to hear it.

For Jill, born in the 1930s, the role of home-maker and the provider of meals has defined almost all of her adult life. The name Jill Archer is practically synonymous with the words Lemon Drizzle Cake! And there is much more besides that she can turn her hand to in the culinary sphere.

By the time the 1980s came along that had entered the Brookfield household in daughter-in-law, Ruth. Newly married to David, Ruth was sure that while she was married to a farmer she wasn’t going to stay indoors answering the phone and making cakes.

Despite Ruth’s keenness to be a farmer in her own right, she still felt the pressure of measuring up to Jill when it came to feeding the family and running the Brookfield household. While the lives of women have moved on since the 1950s, there continued to be the expectation of women being responsible for domestic chores.

Over the years tension has flared between Ruth and Jill, and many of these have been over food. Ruth would be the first to admit her domestic abilities don’t match the standard of Jill’s but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to pitch in.

For example, one evening in the 1990s, feeling guilty about Jill doing all of the housework, Ruth offered to cook. Her suggestion of fish pie pleased Jill, but when Ruth went to the freezer Jill asked her if she meant a ready-made one. Ruth insisted they were very good while Jill emphasised it was much nicer if you made it yourself.

Financial independence is a big milestone in the changes to the lives of women over the last sixty years. Jill earned small amounts by selling eggs etc but any work she did off the farm has almost all been voluntary, such as Meals on Wheels, WRVS, and the W.I.

Even in the 1980s, Jill was not fully in control of her own money – nor jointly in control of the farm’s money. When Phil asked her for the money they had made from selling potatoes, she confided in Shula that she had already spent it.

“I’ve been doing all the work… When your father marches blithely in and announces that he’s off to the bank and can he have the potato money then I think it’s a bit thick.... Because I haven’t got it, I’ve spent it, I thought it was quite legitimately my perks on top of the housekeeping!”

Now a widow, Jill has gained financial independence. In contrast to the confusion over the potato money in the 1980s, earlier this year she offered to bail out Brookfield as it struggled to recover from the impact of the IBR virus.

Despite being in a much more independent position these days, Jill still works to fulfil the role she always has done, feeding her family. Yet, Paddy believes Jill has come into her own as a widow. Presumably this is because Jill’s voice is no longer secondary to Phil’s, particularly when it comes to matters concerning Brookfield. Jill now speaks in her own right and as matriarch of the family has significant influence.

After playing Jill for sixty years, Paddy is well-qualified to say that she knows Jill better than anybody else.

"I think Jill, left to her own devices, had she not been orphaned when she was little would have been perhaps a businesswoman or some sort, a bit like ", she says.

If there is something in an Archers script that Paddy does not think is right for Jill she will say. "I know her better than anybody in the world," she says.

Paddy adds; “If she [Jill] goes into the pub she has a sherry and it’s not a sweet sherry, may have a sweet sherry, but Jill certainly has a dry sherry.”