A couple of days ago I watched a TV interview about a British radio serial called “The Archers.” It features a fictional Midlands community and began 75 years ago as an entertainment vehicle to convey useful information on farming matters, as our country needed to modernise agricultural practices.
The BBC interviewee said that the educational role was removed in 1972. OpenAI offered me a number of reasons, mainly that it had achieved its aim.
But then I realised that we were just about to join the EEC aka the Common Market which we did formally on 1st January 1973.
Imagine if farmer Dan Archer had to muse daily on the impact on his business of European legislation, grants etc. Perhaps a coastal fisheries contact could also have been telling him of the disastrous Heath government’s decision to let EU nations - especially the French - catch fish in our waters right up to the shoreline.
So, was the remit of this narrative modified simply to suit the political narrative of that time?
1 comment:
The most serious element of 'The Archers', was the request from Doris to her husband, 'One egg or two, Dan'?
This was a serious debate on the availabilty of eggs, the quality of the produce, whether the eggs were to be fried or scrambled, did the little lion show on the shell, was there enough grit in the birds' feed, and whence the toast for finishing the plate...
I don't think that our flaccid politicians foresaw those decisions back then, but they certainly can't these days!
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